Booking Through Thursday: Film to Paper

Even though it’s usually a mistake (grin) … do movies made out of books make you want to read the original?

Yes, all the time! Recently I picked up The World According to Garp, Revolutionary Road and a number of other novels after having seen the movies. One of my favorite reads, Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, is one I read after seeing the movie and I loved it! The Wings of the Dove on the other hand, not so much! Another good one that I read after the movie was Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.

I don't think it's a mistake! On the contrary I enjoy reading books that were the source for movies I liked; usually I like the books more but not always and sometimes it's just neat to experience the different interpretations of the story. Nothing wrong with that!

More Booking Through Thursday here.

REVIEW: The Wedding of Zein, by Tayeb Salih

The Wedding of Zein, by Tayeb Salih. Published 2010 by NYRB Classics. Paperback.

Click here to buy The Wedding of Zein via IndieBound.org I'm an IndieBound affiliate and receive a small commission on sales.

The Wedding of Zein is a comic novella by Sudanese author Tayeb Salih centering on the unlikely nuptials of the town eccentric, a fellow named Zein. Tall and odd-looking, with just two teeth in his mouth, Zein has made a reputation for himself as the man who falls in love over and over with girls who promptly marry other men- to the point where mothers seek him out in hopes that he will draw the eye of available suitors to their eligible daughters. No one ever thought of Zein as marriageable himself.

As the town reacts to the idea of Zein's marriage, the reader gets to know a whole community- its factions, its backstories, its characters and rituals. We see how differences in approaches to politics, religion and lifestyle work themselves out and make this community come together over its favorite oddball. Zein befriends others marginalized in this tight-knit town- the disabled, the enfeebled and the outcast, so it should come as no surprise that Zein's intended is a headstrong young woman considered eccentric herself.

The Wedding of Zein is a delightful, well-paced quick read about a colorful community and the very lovable man at its center. It's the perfect off-the-beaten-path book for readers of literary and world fiction. The setting, a traditional Muslim Sudanese town on the cusp of growth and modernization, is beautifully rendered and the culture is portrayed with love and affection. The wedding celebration itself is so lovingly and vividly described that I felt like I was there among the revelers. And by the end, I was celebrating Zein's wedding, too.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Musing Mondays: Putting it into Practice

This week’s musing asks…

How often do you actually put into practice what you learn from reading nonfiction books (if you read nonfiction, that is)?

If I'm reading a how-to book, it's because I want to learn how to do something, so I would say I put that sort of thing into practice fairly often. One of my hobbies, for example, is baking, so if I read something about a new technique for, say, rolling a pie crust, chances are I'm going to try it out. Or a technique for quiltmaking or bookmaking. And so on. What's the point of asking for advice if you don't want to take it, right?

Musing Mondays is hosted by MizB at ShouldbeReading.wordpress.com.

Sunday Salon - A Day of Travel and Rest

This Sunday finds me home after a fantastic week in South Carolina visiting family. Yes, a post about the bookstores is forthcoming, but for today I'm unpacking and unraveling after a busy week running around to beaches, cities and tourist attractions.

I read several books this week, starting with Dorothea Benton Frank's Bulls Island. Set in the Charleston area, it was a fun way to start off the week. It was also a quick read and from there I moved on to Massimo Carlotto's heart-pounding thriller Death's Dark Abyss and the tragically funny Wish Her Safe at Home, by Stephen Benatar. Today I'm relaxing with Avner Mandelman's The Debba and putting away the books I bought in South Carolina.

We stayed in the Beaufort area and got to see lots of different things. The highlights for me were the city of Charleston and the incredible Edisto Island. We went to cute bookstore there, a beautiful beach and an attraction called The Serpentarium, featuring reptiles large and small. So fun.

We saw this little beauty near the beach at Hunting Island, a relatively isolated but incredibly gorgeous stretch of sand. Our friend here was lounging in a pond a short distance away from the beach. What a cutie, right?

So anyway I'm home now and will post about the bookstores later this week. What are you reading today?

Click on the Sunday Salon icon above to read more posts.

Friday Finds- The Personal and The Professional

Effective Blogging for Libraries, by Connie Crosby, is a professional book about- you guessed it- blogging for libraries. For the past several months I've been contributing to the blog of the Association of Jewish Libraries. It's very different from running a personal book blog and it's time for me to start using professional resources to do a better job.


Elizabeth McCracken's love story The Giant's House, about a librarian and a very tall young man, is a book I've been meaning to read for years. I saw her at a writer's conference in Salem years and years ago and I've been following her lately on Twitter and I simply must read her celebrated first novel.

Julia Wertz's new book, Drinking at the Movies, came from Random House. I'm a big fan of her previous comic collections and am reading this as I type.

Finally, I treated myself to the Barnes & Noble edition of The Chronicles of Narnia, because I love their special editions of classics with wild and beautiful covers, and this is a particular childhood favorite.

What did you find this week? You can see more Friday Finds at ShouldbeReading.wordpress.com.

New in Paperback, Reviewed Here- Labor Day Weekend Reads

While browsing in my local bookstores, I noticed a bumper crop of great new paperbacks out. Here are some favorites that I reviewed in hardcover:

A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. I loved it; granted, it's not for everybody but historical-lit-fic types will love it.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood. Page-turning dystopia from one of my favorite writers. And what a pretty paperback it is!

The Night Counter, by Alia Yunis. This is a terrific light book for those who loved The Hakawati or just enjoy Middle Eastern-themed fiction and family stories.

Going Away Shoes, by Jill McCorkle. Short stories about women and relationships. A nice read from the always-reliable Algonquin Books.

This is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper. The paperback came out a while ago but again, a great read for summer. Hysterically funny.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. Last year's Man Booker winner is a fantastic historical novel about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

This list also counts as my dog-days-of-summer, last-ditch-vacation-reads recommendations. Enjoy the rest of your summer!

REVIEW: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, by Helen Grant

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, by Helen Grant. Published 2010 by Bantam Dell. Hardcover.

Click here to buy The Vanishing of Katharina Linden via IndieBound.org. I'm an IndieBound affiliate and receive a small commission on sales through affiliate links on my website.

I read this book courtesy of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden tells the story of a series of disappearances in a small German town. The first girl to disappear, the titular Katharina, goes missing after a fair. The mystery throws the town into an upheaval as parents wait for the police to find the kidnapper- and, hopefully, Katharina. The story is told through the eyes of young Pia Kolvenbach, a middle-schooler who has become a pariah among her peers following the bizarre Advent-related death of her grandmother. But one of her classmates still wants to be her friend, fellow outcast "Stink Stefan," and together they start their own investigation into what happened to Katharina. In doing so, they uncover town secrets and do a little growing up, too.

I enjoyed reading Katharina Linden. I didn't love it, but it was a good page-turner mixed with a nice coming-of-age story. Pia is a plucky and likable heroine though I thought her home life was a little too dramatic and distracted from the missing-girl storyline a little bit too much. There's a passages involving Pia's trip to England and the martial woes of her parents which could be extracted to form an entirely separate book. The best parts for me were the parts about solving the mystery and exploring the town's checkered past.

A good read-alike for Katharina Linden would probably be last year's Mathilda Savitch; if you enjoyed that one, you'll enjoy this one, too. Like Mathilda, Katharina is a light read told from the point of view of a teen, has YA crossover appeal and a strong story with an unexpected ending. If that sounds like your cup of tea, I'd recommend picking it up right away.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from LibraryThing.com.

Home Libraries: Diversity in the Collection

From my Home Library Mission Statement:

Item #2: My home library is a safe space, where I can relax in private, with books enriching, entertaining and utilitarian. My library will be home to a variety of genres and forms, including literary and functional works such as cookbooks, craft books and blank books for inspiration and my own writing. Done.

Well, not really done, just, you know, in progress.

There are definitely a few things missing from my supposedly well-rounded collection. For one thing, I don't have a Bible. I should probably get one, along with a book on Catholic catechism for the reference section.

My poetry collection is hopelessly out of date because I don't really read contemporary poetry anymore. I'm probably not going to do anything about that.

As for a variety of genres, I read what I read- mostly literary fiction. Once a year I go to a science fiction convention and pick up a book or two to broaden myself a little but I'm happy leaving it at that.

I read very little nonfiction these days, almost none. I have a handful of newish nonfiction books, biographies and memoirs mainly, but I don't really seek them out. As I showed you last week, I've assembled a small collection of Jewish nonfiction as well.

Most of my nonfiction collection lives outside of my living room, in the kitchen and the spare room, which is really my craft room. I divide utilitarian books into two categories in my mind- basic books and special-topic books.

In the kitchen, basic books include things like the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, which is one of those old-school catch-all cookbooks with recipes for everything from cookies to sauces to stews. It'll tell you how long to roast a chicken and how to make elaborate meals from scratch. I never learned to cook from my family so it's the kind of book I need, and I've referred to it many times. A special-topic book would be something like François Payard's Chocolate Epiphany, a book of challenging chocolate recipes.

On the crafting side, I have a couple of key reference books- The Encyclopedia of Needlework, Heirloom Machine Quilting and Your First Quilt Book (or it should be!) plus a solid collection of other quilting and embroidery books on special topics like miniatures or paper piecing.

What's to do here? Not much. My nonfiction collection meets my needs in terms of breadth and depth, for the most part, though there are a few gaps left to fill. Do you see gaps in your collection? Where?

Sunday Salon- The Summer is Ticking Away

I can't believe it's already the middle/nearly the end of August. Where has the summer gone?

Today I'm relaxing as I usually do on Sundays; there's a nice breeze coming in and I'm just soaking in the summer. Reading? Yeah, I'm doing a little of that, too! I've got Dorothea Benton Frank's book Bulls Island going, and I'm really enjoying it. There's a story I should tell you someday about the time a friend and I crashed her table (by mistake!) at a library conference dinner (she was really nice about it), but for now let's just say that I'm glad to be finally getting around to her book. I know it's been out for a while, and there are already several sequels, but hey.

After I'm done with this, and it's going quickly, I'm moving on to The Debba, by Avner Mandelman, an Israeli thriller that came out this spring from the wonderful Other Press. It looks great; I've yet to read anything from Other Press which is anything other than wonderful.

For now I'm going to sip some more iced tea and enjoy the day. I hope you do, too! What are you doing to make it great?

More Sunday Salon here.

Friday Finds- Cool Stuff and Essential Fall Reading

A beautiful finished copy of Joseph Skibell's new novel A Curable Romantic arrived from Algonquin Books. I can't wait to read this- a big, sprawling Jewish historical fiction novel, it's one of my most-anticipated books for fall.




The Fifth Servant, by Kenneth Wishnia, is a new novel in a similar vein, and also a top pick. This one arrived for review from HarperCollins.



Season of Water and Ice, by Donald Lystra, is a moving coming of age story from Northern Illinois University Press. It arrived for review via the book's publicist. The folks sending me pitches seem to be actually reading my review policy- I've had a noticeable uptick in offerings of literary fiction from small presses and I love it.

Finally, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, by Mary Helen Stefaniak, came via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. I have two to review for them now- I really need to get cracking!

What do you need to get cracking on this week?

More Friday Finds at ShouldbeReading.Wordpress.com.