Lighthouse Island
by Paulette Jiles
Narrated by Kevin T. Collins
Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia
Publisher: William Morrow / Harper Audio
Format: Print: 400 pages / Audio, 14 hours | 21 min
Publish Date: October 8, 2013
Audio Listening Level: Difficult
Rating: 3 of 5
From the Publisher:
In the coming centuries, the world’s population has exploded and covered the earth with endless cities. Animals are nearly all gone. Drought plagues the land and cloudy water is issued by the quart. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years. On this urban planet the only relief from the overcrowding, the petty informers, and the harsh rule of the big Agencies is the television in every living space, offering dreams of vanished waterfalls and the promise of virtual vacations in green spaces for the lucky few.
My Thoughts:
Nadia, a young woman orphaned at age four, is obsessed with finding her way to Lighthouse Island, a place in the Pacific Northwest that may or may not even exist. Along the way she meets James, a mapmaker and demolition expert, who helps and then later accompanies her on the dangerous journey north.
I enjoy a good dystopian tale and this story had a lot of the elements I like, particularly world building that takes current issues – overpopulation, climate change, government control – and postulates a scary future society. Water is rationed, dates are no longer used, maps have becomes meaningless, people can be arrested or jailed for any reason the government dreams up, especially if they need cheap labor in the work camps, and executions are televised live on reality TV – the more attractive one is, the greater their chance of being the feature presentation.
There was much to like about the premise of this speculative world but unfortunately I had a difficult time getting through it. The pacing was slow and often disjointed and, a big problem for me, a lot of veering off into stream of consciousness and rambling detail. This made it difficult for me to connect with or even care about Nadia. James was a much more interesting character but far less developed. At times I was glued to the book eager to know what would happen next, other times it dragged and I didn’t pick it back up for a few days.
I started by listening to the audiobook but about half way through I gave up and switched to the print version. The writing style made the audio difficult to follow but I also didn’t like the style of the audio production. The narrator, Kevin T. Collins, used a breathless urgency for the narrative and overly dramatic tone for the characters. I didn’t have a problem with his voice, it was mainly the style that didn’t work for me.
Upon switching to print I had another problem: No quotation marks around the dialog. I find this annoying and it slows down my reading and I read slow enough as it is. I don’t like to work this hard to read a book but I was involved enough in it to want to know the ending. And wouldn’t you know it when I got to what I thought should be the end, the plot twisted and we went off in another direction. I was glad to finally finish this one. I would have ended it 75 pages sooner.
I liked it but I thought it could have been much better.
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Source: Review copies provided by Harper Collins.
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Almost wordless: The turkeys conferred and decided it was safer to lay low until after Black Friday.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly
by Sun-mi Hwang
I Refuse to Lay Another Egg!
The egg rolled to a stop upon reaching the wire mesh of the coop. Sprout looked at it—a chalky egg flecked with blood. She hadn’t laid an egg in two days; she doubted she could anymore. Yet there it was—one small, sad egg.
This cannot happen again, she thought. Would the farmer’s wife take it? She’d collected all the others, complaining every time that they were getting smaller and smaller. She wouldn’t leave this one behind just because it was ugly, would she?
“An anthem for freedom, individuality and motherhood featuring a plucky, spirited heroine who rebels against the tradition-bound world of the barnyard”. This short book seemed the perfect story to sit down and relax with after a few busy days of Thanksgiving Holiday prep.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?
First Chapter Tuesday is hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea. Join us by visiting Diane and linking your own First Chapter post or to find out what others plan to read this week.
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Source: eGalley provided by Penguin Books.
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week. Currently on tour, it is hosted by a different blog each month.
The November host is Crystal @ I totally paused!.
This was a big week for books both print and audio. It felt like everything showed up at once. Most weeks I take my books outside for a photo shoot with some nice background scenery and good lighting. However, the past few days were freezing, and I mean below freezing temperatures, so the books stayed indoors with me.
I’ll be listening to a lot of audio the next few days as I get the house ready for Thanksgiving Day, do the grocery shopping and the cooking. It will be a small group, and no one will be leaving early to go shopping! Just a relaxing, stress free day.
Print Books
This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash from William Morrow.
A resonant novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, involving two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins.
Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson from She Reads.
At twenty-one, Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Natty, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced Catholic mother and Jewish father…
The Strange Birth, Short Life, and Sudden Death of Justice Girl by Julian David Stone from Free Book Friday.
This fun, engrossing work of historical fiction transports readers back to a time when television shows were chaotic tightrope acts balancing the agendas of actors, studio executives, advertisers, and politicians, and all of it broadcast live to fifty million viewers without the security of a safety net.
Rivers by Michael Farris Smith a win from River City Reading.
Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.
City Parks: Public Places, Private Thoughts by Catie Marron
The spirit and beauty of the world’s most loved city parks, captured in breathtaking photographs and the evocative words of eighteen celebrated writers and influential figures.
Audiobooks
From Penguin Audio:
Mirage by Clive Cussler
In October 1943, a U.S. destroyer sailed out of Philadelphia and supposedly vanished, the result of a Navy experiment with electromagnetic radiation. The story was considered a hoax—but now Juan Cabrillo and his Oregon colleagues aren’t so sure.
Game Change by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann
Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.
George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade
The true story of the anonymous spies who helped win the Revolutionary War.
Dust (Kay Scarpetta #21) by Patricia Cornwell
A body, oddly draped in an unusual cloth, has just been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT and it’s suspected the identity is that of missing computer engineer Gail Shipton
What are you reading?
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© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Today I’m digging into my photo archives for a brilliant splash of color. Other than the Northern Cardinal, winter is not a very colorful time for birds in the Chicago area. By November the summer residents have all gone south, their cheerful songs and bright feathers just a memory.
So today I’m featuring the Indigo Bunting, a gorgeous songbird that summers in the eastern two-thirds of the US and southeastern Canada. In the winter they migrate to southern Florida and the tropics.
A Summer Resident
This photo was taken in early August. The male turns a vibrant blue in the summer and fades to pale brown in the winter. By the time they arrive here in the spring they already have their vivid breeding plumage.
This male was cheerfully singing his bouncy song from the rose garden. As as a group of us walked past he just kept singing. The males will sing from dawn to dusk and can be seen in tree tops, shrubs and even along the road side on telephone lines. We surmised he had a nest nearby and the singing was to distract us.
Sexual Dimorphism
The Indigo Bunting is a songbird that displays sexual dimorphism in its coloration. While the male turns brilliant blue, the female stays brown year-round and is often difficult to find. She doesn’t sing but instead is busy doing all of the nest-building and incubation of the eggs. And when a female is seen, she can be mistaken for a large sparrow or small cowbird.
How do I know this is a female indigo?
My primary clue was habitat. I saw the female bird in a tree along a path that I walk several times a week. I would frequently see a male indigo in the same group of trees. From his territorial behavior I thought there was probably a nest nearby. Several months later I saw youngsters in the same area. The only other species she could be is a female cowbird. They are similar looking and the lighting wasn’t the best so I can’t completely rule it out. Another clue is size; the indigo is smaller than a cowbird. (Any birders reading this feel free to comment. Tricky IDs drive me crazy.)
Juvenile Indigo Buntings
Both male and female youngsters look like mom until they grow their adult plumage. I saw these little guys while monitoring birds for the forest preserve in September. Unfortunately the sun was behind them washing out their color and creating shadows, but this makes a good enough photo for identification.
By the end of October the Indigo Buntings had departed on their journey south to their winter homes and won’t return to the Chicago area until April.
Saturday Snapshot was originated by Alyce at At Home With Books. For the summer it will be hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Eminent Hipsters
by Donald Fagen
Narrated by Donald Fagen
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Publish Date: October 22, 2013
Format: Audio, 4 hours | 38 minutes
Audio Listening Level: Easy
Rating: 3 of 5
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Musician and songwriter Donald Fagen presents a group of vivid set pieces in his entertaining debut as an author, from portraits of the cultural figures and currents that shaped him as a youth to an account of his college days and of life on the road.
My Thoughts:
Fagan begins with a little background on his early years growing up in a New Jersey suburb in the 1960s and talks about the jazz singers and songwriters that were an influence on him. He touches on his high school and college years and briefly mentions meeting Walter Becker, his future partner in Steely Dan, while attending Bard College. In the last part of the book he chronicles his recent cross-country tour with Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald as the Dukes of September, an R&B band.
As a long-time Steely Dan fan I enjoyed learning more about one of my favorite singer/songwriters. But in a way, the book was too short. Perhaps that was deliberate because it only touched on a lot areas of his life and in most instances didn’t go into a lot of detail. While mostly interesting, the material is a little scattered and rambles at times.
I particularly enjoyed the essays about his love of science fiction. (Yes, I did mention he got a bit random at times.) A loner in high school, he would escape into books, specifically science fiction. Many of the authors and novels he mentioned were refuges of my own youth and I enjoyed and easily related to this.
I already knew Fagan didn’t like to go on tour, but the second half of the book, a diary he wrote while on the road with the Dukes, really brings that home. It’s pretty obvious he loathes touring: The hotels, even the swimming pools at the hotels (hmmm), the food, the room service, the venues, even some of the fans. It annoyed him that so many fans wanted to hear only his old hits. This part of the book did get a bit cranky but was written in a humorous, sarcastic manner which gave me a few laughs. He was told by his people that if he wanted first class hotels and happy fans he needed to tour as Steely Dan, not the Dukes as the Dukes were not a big enough draw. After listening to an hour of this I began to wonder why he toured at all. I never did get an answer.
I listened to the audiobook which was read by the author. I have mixed feelings on an author doing the narration. With fiction, very few can carry it off to my satisfaction, but with non-fiction I’m a little more forgiving. Fagan’s narration was wooden at times but listenable, and with memoirs, the author’s reading gives the story a sense of validity. If you’re leaning towards listening, it might be a good idea to hear a sample of the audio first.
This is a nice introduction to Donald Fagan and as a fan I’d like to read more. The writing was good and I look forward to a more detailed future memoir.
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Source: Review copy provided by Penguin Audio
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Thanks to the publicist, I have a copy of Sweet Nothings, the latest novel from Janis Thomas, to give away to one of my readers with a US mailing address. I haven’t had a chance to read my copy yet but from the description it sounds delightful and a nice way to escape for a few hours.
Following is a little information about the book and the author:
About the Book
Sweet Nothingsby Janis Thomas
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Publish Date: July 2, 2013
Format: Paperback | 386 pages
Life’s sweetest moments happen when you least expect them . . .
When Ruby McMillan’s husband announces one morning that he’s dumping her for another woman, she’s unable to decide which indignity stings the most: the dissolution of their eighteen-year marriage or the deflation of her white-chocolate soufflé with raspberry Grand Marnier sauce. Without a good-bye to their two teenaged children, Walter leaves Ruby to cope with her ruined dessert, an unpaid mortgage, and her failing bakery.
With only royal icing holding her together, Ruby still manages to pick herself up and move on, subsidizing her income with an extra job as a baking instructor, getting a “my-husband’s-gone” makeover, and even flirting with her gorgeous mortgage broker, Jacob Salt. For as long as she can remember, Ruby has done what’s practical, eschewing far-fetched dreams and true love in favor of stability. But suddenly single again at the age of forty-four, she’s beginning to discover that life is most delicious when you stop following a recipe and just live.
About the Author
Janis Thomas is a graduate of UCLA who was actually born in the University’s Medical Center. Upon graduating, she moved to Manhattan to get a taste of city life, and so liked the flavor, she stayed for eleven years. While there, she performed in several plays, including the Off-Broadway production of Your Children, was cast in the National Tour of Forbidden Broadway, and played out in some of the hottest clubs in the city with her sister and their band she said. While bartending on the upper west side she met her now-husband. She made him a margarita and they’ve been together ever since.
Janis has written over fifty songs and two children’s books (with her dad). When she is not writing or fulfilling her PTA duties, she likes to channel her inner Ace of Cakes to create fun and fabulous desserts. She currently resides in Orange County with her Jersey-transplant husband, their two beautiful children, and dog Ruby. Mom, Dad, siblings, and treasured loved ones live nearby.
Connect with Janis
Giveaway Information
Giveaway is open to those 18 years or older with a US mailing address. To enter, leave a comment on or before November 30, 2013. For an extra entry tweet or blog the giveaway and leave the link in your comment. I will draw a random winner who will be contacted by email and have 48 hours to respond with a mailing address.
Giveaway has ended
Winner: Anita
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© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Under My Apple Tree 