November's Books to Film (You KNOW! the season is upon us)

Thu, 11/17/2011 - 6:37pm by muffy

Brian Selznick's charming Caldecott Medal winner The Invention of Hugo Cabret : a novel in words and pictures (2007) is one for the whole family to hit the big screen on November 23rd. In this moving and entertaining film adaptation, an orphaned boy secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man. Martin Scorsese directs a star-studded cast of Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law.

Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is the highly anticipated next chapter of the blockbuster The Twilight Saga. The new-found married bliss of Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen is cut short when a series of betrayals and misfortunes threatens to destroy their world. Wide release on the 18th, savvy fans know the drill.

The gritty noir novel London Boulevard (2001) by Ken Bruen has been adapted into a feature film starring Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Ray Winstone. An ex-con hired to look after a reclusive young actress finds himself falling in love, which puts him in direct confrontation with one of London's most vicious gangsters.

In A Dangerous Method, adapted from the book by John Kerr, on the eve of World War I, Zurich and Vienna are the setting for a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery. Drawn from true-life events, it explores the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung, his mentor Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein, the beautiful but disturbed young woman who comes between them. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen.

George Clooney, Judy Greer, and Matthew Lillard star in The Descendants, adapted from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Wealthy Hawaiian landowner Matt King has his life upended when his wife, Joanie, is involved in a boating accident. King struggles to reconnect with his two daughters as the three of them take a journey to deliver the news of Joanie's imminent death to the man with whom she was having an affair.

My Week With Marilyn, is based on Colin Clark’s (played by Eddie Redmayne) controversial memoir. The film centers on the tense relationship between Sir Laurence Olivier ( Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe ( Michelle Williams) during production of The Prince and the Showgirl. In the early summer of 1956, 23-year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. In his diary, one week was missing, and this is the story of that week when Colin introduced Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #298

Thu, 11/10/2011 - 4:32pm by muffy

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is the first title in our collection by novelist Monique Roffey, made memorable in its audiobook format by the narrator.

Adjoa Andoh is an accomplished British film, television, stage and radio actor who made her Hollywood debut as Nelson Mandela's Chief of Staff Brenda Mazikubio in Clint Eastwood's Invictus. She brings drama and texture in narrating this story of a marriage both passionate and tortured - between expat. George (British), Sabine Harwood (she is French) and Trinidad, the island that came between them.

Lush, and full of opportunities for a white man, George was immediately seduced by the landscape, and the easy expat. lifestyle, stretching a 3-year contract stay into a lifetime. Sabine hated the incessant heat, humidity, and the savage brutality of an island awakening to nationalism where the colonials were barely tolerated. In the early days, the only comfort which Sabine took was in the green bicycle that she rode all over the island oblivious to the stares and speculation, and her secret fascination with the charismatic freedom fighter Eric Williams, an Oxford-educated black man.

"Roffey succeeds wonderfully in writing an informative and deeply moving novel about her homeland. The white woman on the green bicycle is in fact her mother."

"Narrator Adjoa Andoh becomes each of the characters in turn, flawlessly giving voice to a variety of accents--from the languid and lilting cadence of the natives of Trinidad to the clipped and imperial English of the main character, Sabine. In addition to being a virtual chameleon in the realm of accents, Andoh portrays both men and women with equal ease and breathes life into each character so that the listener is apt to forget that anyone is narrating at all. As a result, it is less of a listen and more of an experience."

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #297

Wed, 11/09/2011 - 6:20pm by muffy

Michigan author Caitlin Horrocks will be at Nicola's on Friday, November 11 @ 7pm to read from her debut collection of short stories This Is Not Your City * .

In these darkly comic stories, 11 women confront dramas both everyday and outlandish. Isolated by geography, emotion, or circumstance they find no simple escapes. Their acts of faith and acts of imagination in making do are as shrewd as they are surprising.

The first story "Zolaria" in particular hits close to home. Though the title of the collection cautions one that it is not your city, Ann Arborites will recognize landmarks such as Little Sister Lake, Dolph Park, Wagner & Newport roads, Forsythe Junior High,and the gas station at Miller and Maple that stood empty for years. In this story a young mother looks back on the enduring yet troubled bond with a childhood friend and its chilling effect on her relationship with her young daughters.

In "Going to Estonia," Ursula's desire for a relationship leads her into an unusual involvement with her Helsinki neighbor.

In the titular story, Daria, a mail-order bride struggles with the barricades of culture and family after her teenage daughter goes missing.

"Many of the stories are bleak, painfully and realistically detailing lives gone awry, to sometimes disturbing effect" but they never fail to offer earnest and compelling perspectives.

A note about the author... (Visit her website)

Caitlin Horrocks lives in Michigan by way of Ohio, Arizona, England, Finland, and the Czech Republic. Her stories and essays appear in The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize , The Paris Review, among others. Her work has won awards including the Plimpton Prize, and a Bread Loaf Writers Conference Fellowship. Currently, she is an assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley State University. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the writer W. Todd Kaneko.

* = Starred review

Lost & Found by Shaun Tan

Sun, 11/06/2011 - 5:39pm by Caser

"Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to / and things go from bad to worse / darkness overcomes you / nobody understands / the world is a deaf machine / without sense or reason."

This begins The Red Tree, the first of three stories collected in the book, Lost & Found, by author + illustrator, Shaun Tan. The illustrations are evocative, surreal, and emotionally striking, a visual mixtape of tones and images of alienation and isolation that recall the likes of David Lynch, Tim Burton, and Chris Van Allsburg.

I lingered on one richly imagined page for five full minutes, allowing the words, "wonderful things are passing you by," play on repeat in my head as I became the red haired girl in the illustration, locked behind a window, staring out at a flying machine trailed by butterflies and heading toward a crimson sunset through the clouds. The reading experience was both an escape to a strange place as well as a deeply empathetic moment for that feeling of alone-ness and apart-ness from the world. This collision of complex -- and often dissimilar -- human emotions is the brilliance of Shaun Tan's work.

There is more hope in each story than I'm letting on. But it is a hope tempered by the notion that even a happy outcome cannot erase sadness or fill a lingering emptiness. This is a book that both adults and children will feel a powerful connection to, and it will draw readers back to find something that they might not have lost, but have missed without knowing it.

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #296

Sat, 11/05/2011 - 4:36pm by muffy

Release scheduled for this coming week, first in the projected Nina Borg mystery series, The Boy in the Suitcase * marks the debut of co-authors Lene Kaaberbol (visit the website of this well-respected teen author) and Agnete Friis.

When asked by an estranged friend Karin to help retrieve a suitcase from a locker at the main Copenhagen train station, Nina Borg, Red Cross nurse and a compulsive do-gooder can't refuse. After dragging it home, Nina discovers inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive. When Karin is brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

Winner of the 2008 Harald Mogensen Award for Best Danish Crime Novel, and a finalist for the Scandinavian Glass Key Award, this fast-paced, suspenseful thriller could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of Scandinavian crime fiction, many also by women writers with strong female protagonists.

* = starred review

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #293 (Revised)

Tue, 11/01/2011 - 12:14pm by muffy

30,000 ft. over the Atlantic, the movies are mindless and sleep eludes you. Your best hope is a good book and this cozy mystery debut did not disappoint.

East bound, I was delighted with Wicked Autumn: a Max Tudor novel * by G. M. Malliet. It brings to mind the Three Pines Series by Louise Penny, with a idyllic English village setting and the usual "tangled alliances and animosities" found in small, insular communities. When the ever-unpleasant and bossy Wanda Batton-Smythe (think Hyacinth Bucket for those of you who like your humor British) is found dead at the Harvest Fayre, the suspects are many. Max Tudor, a former MI5 agent and the newly installed village vicar, finds himself quickly involved in the police investigation.

Winner of the 2008 Agatha Award for Death of a Cozy Writer (part of the St. Just Series) "G.M. Malliet serves up an irresistible English village—deliciously skewered—a flawed but likeable protagonist, and a brilliantly modern version of the traditional drawing room mystery" in this first of a projected cozy series. The sleuthing clergy frame would appeal to fans of the Clare Ferguson series by Julia Spencer-Fleming.

News Alert!!!! (November 1st)

Also just released is Canadian C.C. Benison's Twelve Drummers Drumming *, the first in a cozy series featuring the sleuthing Father Christmas (a.k.a. The Reverend Tom Christmas) - dedicated village (think St. Mary Mead) vicar, a retired magician (who still has a trick or two up his sleeves), and a single father mourning a recent loss.

Tight plotting, strong characterization, enchanting setting, "A crime novel that Agatha Christie might have been justly proud to claim as her own". ~ Margaret Maron

* = starred review

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #295

Fri, 10/28/2011 - 8:45pm by muffy

Now for something fun... try The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: a novel in pictures * by novelist Caroline Preston. It is the first of its kind - a scrapbook novel.

Former archivist at Harvard's Houghton Library, Preston pulls together her personal collection of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus and other prized ephemera to create an engaging Frankie Pratt as she makes her way in the dazzling world of the1920s. Preston chronicles Frankie's growing up a small New England town, the grief of losing her father, crossing paths with the likes of “Vincent” (Edna St. Vincent Millay) at Vassar, meeting exiled Russian princes, living free and wild in Paris as she searches for success and love.

"Lighter than lightweight but undeniably fun, largely because Preston is having so much fun herself." A total pleasure and visual feast. Definitely for scrapbookers and vintage hobbyist.

* = starred review

Fabulous Fiction Firsts #294

Fri, 10/28/2011 - 5:02pm by muffy

I saved this one for the Schiphol to DTW flight, knowing that I will need something gripping to ward off the fatigue. Most appropriately, the opening scene is set in Amsterdam.

All Cry Chaos* is the first in a proposed series introducing an aging, ailing Interpol agent Henri Poincare. American (Harvard) James Fenster, a gifted and eccentric mathematician is assassinated on the eve of a World Trade Organization meeting where he is to present a revolutionary theory. The hit is as elegant as it is bizarre. Crisscrossing the Atlantic in search of answers and more importantly, a very clever killer, Poincare meets up with more puzzles than leads. Meanwhile, a vicious war criminal with scores to settle is exacting revenge on Poincare's family in his absence.

A "masterful and gripping tale," weaving fractals and chaos theory into an international mystery that also confronts great moral and theological questions. " 'Thoughtful, beautifully written."

This accomplished debut by Leonard Rosen, an established textbook author will appeal to fans of cerebral and mathematical mysteries such as Arturo Sangalli's Pythagoras' Revenge: A Mathematical Mystery and Michael Gregorio's Critique of Criminal Reason. Readers who favor cloak-and-dagger, globe-trotting intrigue with a flawed protagonist a bit past his prime would be reminded of recent titles of John LeCarre and Olen Steinhauer where the stake is high and the personal costs, higher.

* = starred review

"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain...."

Sat, 10/22/2011 - 2:36pm by gargusa

This time of year always compels me to revisit one of my favorite authors, . The damp gloomy weather, falling leaves, shadowy nights, wool coats, and crows sitting on split rail fencing bring to mind another year has passed since I have nestled down to peruse these pages of precious unforgotten lore.

In no particular order I read through my anthology of Poe's greatest works. I do, however, read one poem twice and that is The Raven. This work exemplifies Poe’s masterful use of the English language to create imagination inducing and melodic alliteration. A reading of this poem is not unlike listening to a great piece of music.

I always include a reading of the Tell Tale Heart savoring the initial calm narrative, which includes a description of a pale blue eye covered by a cloudy film that our murderer declares "Evil". This evil eye drives our narrator to plot a heinous murder. As the tale builds to a deafening crescendo a once "sane" man goes mad due to the imagined beating of a deceased man's heart brought on by a guilty conscience spiraling out of control.

A follow up reading of The Cask of Amontillado is always satisfying. Our main character of discontent, Montresor, had born a thousand injuries, of the nature we are not privy, from the facetiously named Fortunato. Fortunato’s downfall emerges from his masterful connoisseurship of vintage Italian wine. At the invitation of the prophetically named Montresor, he ventures into the catacombs, to verify the authenticity and quality of a barrel of apprized Amontillado that Montresor claims to have purchased during carnivale. Deeper into the recesses our predator and prey venture until they reach the niche where the cask is cached in the wall. Fortunato finds his way in, and is promptly shackled to the wall by the swift vengeful Montresor. Through actions of precise premeditation, Fortunato fearfully realizes he is about to become an eternal resident of the catacombs with only Medoc on his lips.

My reading adventure continues on until I have read the macabre torture tale The Pit and the Pendulum, and the lamenting and lyrical poems, Anabel Lee and The Bells. For all to experience, Poe's rhyme is penned, partake if it calls to you my friend.

Lionsgate Acquires Chaos Walking Series

Mon, 10/03/2011 - 3:04pm by Caser

Author Patrick Ness' tremendously successful, teen dystopian trilogy, Chaos Walking, may soon be adapted as a series of feature films. Lionsgate entertainment company, the studio behind the Hunger Games films as well as The Departed and The Grudge, has acquired the rights to this harrowing, ultraviolent tale of survival against all odds.

13 year old Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown, a secluded settlement on New World where all of the women have died. The town has a terrible, secret history that forces Todd into exile, pursued by a demonic preacher and a rapidly growing army hunting him down. New World is plagued by "the Noise," a germ-born cloud of thoughts -- audible to the world -- that projects out from each man, leaving no one's thoughts private. Todd's journey is not only one of survival, but also one of his awakening to the dark truths of New World and their consequences on his conscience.

The books in the Chaos Walking trilogy are The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men, all of which are part of the AADL's Teen collection.