Tails of Wonder and Imagination edited by Ellen Datlow

About the book: What is it about the cat that captivates the creative imagination? No other creature has inspired so many authors to take pen to page. Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written aobut cats.

From the legendary editor ellen Datlow comes Tails of Wonder and Imagination, showcasing forty cat tales by some of today's most popular authors. With uncollected stories by Stephen King, Carol Emshwiller, Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, Elizabeth Hand, Dennis Danvers, and Theodora Goss and a previously unpublished story by Susanna Clarke, plus feline-centric fiction by Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, George R.R. Martin, Lucius Shepard, Joyce Carol Oates, Graham Joyce, Catherynne M. Valente, Michael Marshall Smith, and Many others.

Tails of wonder and Imagination features more than 200,000 words of stories in which cats are heroes and stories in which they're villains; tales of domestic cats, tigers, lions, mythical part-cat beings, people transformed into cats, cats transformed into people. And yes, even a few cute cats.

My thoughts: I chose this book of short stories for two reasons: I like stories about cats and I needed a short story collection for one of my challenges. For the most part I enjoyed this book. It was mostly fantasy with a healthy number of stories falling into dark fantasy and horror. The scariest was Cat in Glass by Nancy Etchemendy. Only two of the stories got me smiling and those were: Gordon, the Self-Made Cat by Peter S. Beagle and The Burglar Takes a Cat by Lawrence Block. One of the cat series I follow is about Midnight Louie and is written by Carole Nelson Douglas so I was happy to see a short Midnight Louie here. One of my favorites was the retelling of a Japanese fairy story called The Poet and the Inkmaker's Daughter by Elizabeth Hand.

I did not like that so many of the stories included the cats coming to some kind of harm. My recommendation will be to those of you who enjoy reading fantasy. I have to say that I love the cover!

Rating: B

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

About the book: In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

First Line: If Patty weren't an atheist, she would thank the good Lord for school athletic programs because they basically saved her life and gave her a chance to realize herself as a person.
My thoughts: I needed a book for the Oprah Book Club portion of my personal challenge. After reading the blurbs for several of them I chose Freedom. They were glowing, telling how absolutely wonderful this book was. I hate to be critical of a book....I am not a writer and I can only imagine the work that goes into writing one, especially one as long as this one. The writing was great but the story was b.o.r.i.n.g. It droned on and on about the lives of characters who were never fleshed out. Way too many details were given about portions of their lives, especially the sections on sex. Yuck. I especially did not understand Walter, one of the main characters, who went from being patient and kind to being a hot head. He was an environmentalist who signed off on a strip mining venture with the understanding that, years from now, it would be a reserve for one species of bird.  ??????? It seemed quite preachy and repetitive to me on subjects such as the environment, social issues, sex, and politics.

The second half was better than the first, the story moved on along and got more interesting. By the end the characters had been through hell, long excruciating hell, but came out the other end with some hope.

Rating: C

Quote: "Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right. There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for staying alive's sake." 

Jewel by Bret Lott

About the book: In the backwoods of Mississippi, a land of honeysuckle and grapevine, Jewel and her husband, Leston, are truly blessed; they have five fine children. When Brenda Kay is born in 1943, Jewel gives thanks for a healthy baby, last-born and most welcome. Jewel is the story of how quickly a life can change; how, like lightning, an unforeseen event can set us on a course without reason or compass. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction.

First line: I was born in 1904, so that when I was pregnant in 1943 I was near enough to be past the rightful age to bear children.

My thoughts: This one has been in my TBR pile for a while. It was the story of an ordinary family facing hardships together. Though it was a heart touching story with lovely prose it was a slow read. There were a few high points of course but between them it was a long haul. I got to know Jewel, from whose POV the story was told, and her husband Leston. Even though Brenda Kay, Jewel's child with Down Syndrome, was the focus of their lives we never got to know her too well, other than as a burden. I wish there had been more moments that showed ways that she added to the family.

Jewel is realistic - it accurately reflects the attitudes towards minorities at the time as well as the lack of services available for people with disabilities.

Rating: B

Quote: One day they'd do the bolts, another day the nuts, then the bolts, then the nuts. Certainly there'd been joy in her accomplishing that much; she even brought home a paycheck once a month, always for some odd small amount, $7.31, or $6.96. On those afternoons, she came home waving the check, we'd go right down to the bank, cash it, then go to dinner at a Denny's or Sizzler, where I'd let her pay for her meal herself, though money still meant nothing to her, only pieces of paper, chunks of metal handed over to a smiling waitress.

The Regulators by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)

About the book: By nightfall, almost everyone in the quiet town of Wentworth, Ohio will be dead, and the survivors will be whisked away to the world of regulators--where terrifying nightmares come true. The impending carnage seems to revolve around an autistic 8-year-old; but until he speaks, the residents of Wentworth will never know why the regulators have come, what powers they possess, how far they will go, and how they can be stopped.

First line: Summer's here. Not just summer, either, not this year, but the apotheosis of summer, the avatar of summer, high green perfect central Ohio summer dead-smash in the middle of July, white sun glaring out of that fabled faded Levi's sky, the sound of kids hollering back and forth through the Bear Street Woods at the top of the hill, the tink! of Little League bats from the ballfield on the other side of the woods, the sound of power-mowers, the sound of muscle-cars out on Highway 19, the sound of Rollerblades on the cement sidewalks and smooth macadam of Poplar Street, the sound of radios - Cleveland Indian baseball (the rare day game) competing with Tina Turner belting out "Nutbush City Limits," the one that goes "Twenty-five is the speed limit, motorcycles not allowed in it" - and surrounding everything like an auditory edging of lace, the soothing, silky hiss of lawn sprinklers. (That's one long sentence.)

My thoughts: I found this to be a scary fun read. It took a little to get going but when it did it didn't let up till the end. What amazed me was that this chunkster took place over the course of 2 or 3 hours one afternoon. King did his thing here placing normal, everyday people in a horrific situation. There were a lot of characters but I found them surprisingly easy to keep straight. Maybe it was that they kept getting killed off. The evil force known as "Tak" that takes over Seth is well written and I found it interesting and disconcerting that it was so evil yet loved such childish things: chocolate milk, a certain cartoon, old cowboy movies and shows etc. It (Tak) used these things it loved to decimate the neighborhood. What could be scarier than knowing you were being attacked by a cartoon character with Hoss Cartwright riding shotgun? It was rather gory in places but that is to be expected. If you are a fan of King or horror fiction you'll like this book.

Rating:

Quote: And, far back in the network of caves and tunnels and boltholes the boy had constructed 9the part of him that did not want Tak, the part that was horrified of the stranger now living in his head,) Tak caught a glimmer, a faint pulse, that it recognized.

Links:

Wikipedia article

Amazon

Goodreads

Stephen King

Challenges Finished So Far This Year

I've had a good reading year so far. With less than half the year gone I've read 56 books and finished these challenges:

The Audiobook Challenge (view list) Finished! :)

Suspense & Thriller 2009 Challenge (view list) Finished! :)

Support Your Local Library Challenge 2009 (view list) Finished :)

Chunkster Challenge (view list) Finished! :)

What's In a name Challenge (view list) Finished :)


The Daniel DeFoe Mini-Challenge (view list) Finished :)

White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison

From the book: Some wounds take time to heal . . . and some scars never fade.
Rachel Morgan, kick-ass witch and bounty hunter, has taken her fair share of hits, and has broken lines she swore she would never cross. But when her lover was murdered, it left a deeper wound than Rachel ever imagined, and now she won't rest until his death is solved . . . and avenged. Whatever the cost.
Yet the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and when a new predator moves to the apex of the Inderlander food chain, Rachel's past comes back to haunt her. Literally.

My Thoughts: I was anxiously waiting for this book and it wasn't what I was expecting. At 500 pages I think a lot of things could have been left out or condensed and other things brought forward. For example : less of Ivy and Rachel and Jinx forever going on and on about the relationship Ivy and Rachel long for with each other but don't have. More info please about Matilda, Jinx's' sickly wife.

I'm sorry, the above seems like griping and I only wish I could write well enough to write fiction like Kim Harrison has given us. I have loved this series and even though this book was a little disappointing to me, in the end I enjoyed it and look forward to more in this series. At least we found out who killed Kisten. The hook at the end has me ready to read more. Trent sent Rachel a Pandora charm to help her remember. Remember what will be in the next book! If you haven't read this series do not start with this one.

Challenges:

100+ Reading Challenge

Support Your Local Library Challenge

Chunkster Challenge

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Publisher Comments:Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm — and into Edgar's mother's affections.
Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his father's death, but his plan backfires — spectacularly. Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him. But his need to face his father's murderer and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn Edgar ever homeward.

My thoughts: This book is breath taking, the characters developed so they were friends, it was stunning, extraordinary, beautiful. The development of the dogs and their awareness sparked my imagination and caused me to look at my dogs in a new light. There was evil, betrayal, love, trust, friendship, & mourning. There was even a little of the supernatural. I loved this book all the way till the end then I wanted to cry and throw it across the room. My heart crashed and burned with the barn. How can a book that is so wonderful end so badly?

See and interview of the author on the Today show.

Read an interview with the author here and here.

Read about the real Hachiko here.

The Memorist by M. J. Rose

From the cover: The Dreads are back. As a child, Meer Logan was haunted by memories of another time and place always accompanied by the faint strains of elusive music. Now the dreads are back. The past has reached out again in the form of a strange letter that sets her on a search to unlock the mystery of who she once was. With the help of her father – a Kabbalist, known as the Jewish Indiana Jones – Meer attempts to learn the meaning behind her hauntingly vivid memories. What they discover could reveal a frighteningly powerful secret hidden for generations by one of the greatest composers of all time. With each step she comes closer to remembering the connections between a clandestine reincarnationist society, a lost flute linked to Ludwig van Beethoven and David Yalom, a journalist who understands all too well how the past affects the future. David knows loss firsthand – terrorism is a reality that cost him his family. He's seen every solution promised by security experts around the world – and he's seen every solution fail. Now in a concert hall in Vienna, he plans to force the word to understand the cost of those failures in a single violent act. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

My thoughts: The Memorist is a complected story with its combination of past and present, history, mystery and suspense. At times I found it tedious. The number or characters to keep track of, plus who they were in the past (this near the end of the book) was challenging for me. Even so, I enjoyed this book. The story hooked me just enough to keep me going. I don't believe in reincarnation, personally so it read like sci-fi for me. I liked the way Rose gives readers little glimpses into Meer's past lives to share those stories and bring more meaning to the present. The sub-plot add suspense to the overall story.

Visit the author's site here.

The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo by Stieg Larsson

Translated from the swedish by Reg Keeland


Book Jacket: It's about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden ... and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder." "It's about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance ... and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age - and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it - who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism - and an unexpected connection between themselves. It's a novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives.

My Thoughts: This was not an edge of your seat thriller for me (except near the end) but it was a compelling read. I liked this book. The characters were likable (or hate-able as the case may be) each with their own flaws. The heroine was very different, asocial but sympathetic. I enjoyed the setting, Sweden, and the social comment I found here. It could have been a thinner faster read if those things had not been written in or had been edited out, but then the feel of reading about another country would have been lost. I found some of the relationships strange, especially the open relationship of two of the main characters. The main mystery was wrapped up well before the end of the book. The rest, closing a corporate mystery that began at the beginning of the book, was a little anticlimatic but rewarding for the characters sake. I did not love the very end, but assume it will be resolved in the next book. I will be reading the sequels.

Here is a trailer for the book.