SUGGESTION SATURDAY
Welcome to another installment of Suggestion Saturday dear readers. And for my new dear readers, Suggestion Saturday is when I read a book that was suggested by one of my readers, so if you have any books you would like to recommend please leave your suggestions in the comments section.
And now, back by popular demand (okay, so there was actually no demand) one of the blogs most popular features (but only in my own mind), I bring you: QUESTIONS I'VE BEEN ASKED ONCE. There are a few questions that I've been asked over and over again (How do you find the time to read a book every day? How do you choose your book? What made you decide to do this project?), but most blogging related questions I am asked only once, and for reasons which don't reflect well on me, I am totally convinced that there MUST be a second person somewhere in the world who wants to know the answer to these questions. So I shared them with my dear readers at the beginning of the year for awhile, before giving the feature a rest because it was starting to feel like a gimmick. But now I think it's time to get back to the gimmicks, so here are a few more QUESTIONS I'VE BEEN ASKED ONCE:
1. What has been your least favorite book so far? - Brightness Falls From the Air (Sorry Aunt Brenda. I tried - I really, really tried to like the book, but science fiction is not my scene.) The least favorite book is not to be confused with the most disappointing book, which was Somewhere in Time (I had expected to like that book since it always sounded like the kind of book I would like, plus I was actually reading it at Mackinac so I thought that would add to the interest. But, no. It bored me senseless.)
2. What motivated you to keep going on days when you didn't feel like reading? - I've had quite a few days where I woke up and didn't feel in a reading kind of mood, and on those days I was motivated by the thought of my dear readers showing up to read about that day's book. The reason why I decided to write this as a blog in the first place, rather than just writing it as a book, was that I knew it would be harder to quit if I had readers who were interested in the project. So thanks for keeping me accountable dear readers.
Today's book, "Raised in tough turn-of-the-century South Boston, Lydia Kilkenny works as a shopgirl at a fancy downtown department store, where she meets shy, hypochondriacal medical student Henry Wickett. After a brief courtship, the two marry (Henry down, Lydia decidedly up) in 1914. Henry quits school to promote his eponymous remedy, whose putative healing powers have less to do with the tasty brew that Lydia concocts than with the personal letters that Henry pens to each buyer."
Shallow thoughts:
- I've only put half of the book description up for you dear readers because the full one gave away almost the entire plot of the book. Why do some books do that? Do they honestly expect us to feel the need to read a book anyway after we've already been told everything that's going to happen? It's like the literary equivalent of that expression "he won't buy the cow if he can get the milk for free."
- Now it's time for extremely shallow thoughts: I like the cover of today's book - not so much the part with the homely child on it (and hey, why beat around the bush, when that child is clearly unfortunate looking), but the way it's supposed to look like a medicine bottle. I enjoy it when a publishing company goes the extra mile and doesn't just give us the same old boring cover. The face of the child, on the other hand, reminds me of the figurines my Grandmother used to have in her house that scared the crap out of me as a child - they always looked every so slightly possessed. And it didn't help that my Brother told me that if I got too close to them, they would come alive and try to kill me (he said the same thing about the clown pictures, the white wrought iron chair, and the toilet which allegedly had a hand in the bottom of it that would come up at any minute and yank me down into the basement.)
- Favorite sentence, "There were rumors Miss Palantine had been barred from sales after an incident in which she had tearfully but with some force thrown a ladies shoe at the head of a male customer after a heated exchange in Neckties." - If only Miss Palantine had been on that show Say Yes to the Dress, where she could mock, trash, and verbally bash the customers during her camera interview time. I'm so jealous of the people who work at that store - can you imagine, a job where you're not only allowed to mock difficult clients, but it's actually encouraged and even a part of your job description. Brilliant.
