This Close by Jessica Francis Kane

This Close; Stories by Jessica Francis Kane

Every Saturday I read a short story.  I have spent the last few months reading a story a week out of This Close.  There are twelve short stories, told with a bit of heartache and tenderness.  Some of the stories are connected and others stand alone.  Kane's stories are snapshots that bring you up close and personal as the reader looks into the windows of people's lives.

We come this close to happiness, love and death on a daily basis.  The stories of This Close are the chance meetings, close calls, wrong turns, small choices made that change the course of your day and the  vivid moments of a life lived.  This Close is about the parts of the story you may not recall because you are too close to it.  Time gives you perspective and so does Jessica Francis Kane in her collection of stories.

One of the more memorable stories for me is called American Lawn; of a lady who lets an immigrant make a garden out of her back yard.  They forge an awkward friendship.  Another storyline that touched me is the story of Maryanne and her son, Mike.  These two characters stories intersect and collide and they are in more than one story.  Double Take is about Mike's college roommate, Ben who takes a road trip when he can't shake his misery after Mike's death.  Ben drives across the country to visit Maryanne.

I have a new found appreciation for short stories and short story writers.  The art of the short story is hard to master and Kane is a master.  This Close is a collection of short stories about family, connections, love, death and the day to day routines of a living a life.  This Close definitely has a story you can connect to.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette was adopted by a set of very religious pentecostal parents who lived in North England.  Her mother adopted her so she could grow up to become a missionary and donate her life to God.  Jeanette was only allowed to read one book, she could recite Bible verses and sing many songs unto the Lord.  They went to church everyday and Jeanette grew up loving the Lord and evangelizing.

Jeanette's mother was abusive, locking her out of the house and beating her for her own good.  She frequently said that God lead her to the wrong crib.  As Jeanette grows up alienated in school because of her religious fervor, she begins to realize that she is different.  Her religion sets her apart but more than that, Jeanette realizes she was attracted to the same sex.

This semi-autobiographical, coming of age, novel was written in 1985, when the author was 24 years old.  Winterson writes that the true story is too painful to recount and much worse than this fictional retelling.  Each chapter is named after a book of the Bible, starting with Genesis and ending with Ruth.  Oranges is an amazing book and an incredibly fast read.  I took it on vacation with me and I read it in two days.

I was drawn in by Jeanette's story and her Biblical mother.  Her mother and her religious fervor reminded me a lot of my strict Baptist grandmother.  My grandmother was so religious that she refused to attend her own sons wedding because he married a Catholic girl.  My grandmother never hit me but I was afraid of her for a long time and felt like the outsider in the family.  In many ways my experience mirrored Jeanette's.

The characters in Oranges are well-developed and Jeanette is the unorthodox heroine of her own story. Parts of the novel are quirky and some parts are awful and I admit I was intrigued when poor Jeanette was being exorcised of the devil.  I found myself hoping the main character would find compassion and love from someone in the church.  This book left an indelible mark on my soul and I don't think I will ever forget it.

“Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more.”

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit won the Whitbread Prize for first fiction and was made into a film by the BBC in 1990.

Twin Cities Book Festival

Twin Cities Book Festival

The Twin Cities annual Book Festival was held on Saturday, October 12th, 2013 at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.  It started out as a beautiful Fall day.  There were hundreds of venders, that included publishers, authors, creative writing institutions, a children's pavillon, booksellers and more.  There was a used book sale, a literary lounge, book signings, music, brain games and lots of panels and author speaking events.  Oh my gosh, so much to do and so little time.  I only had 4 hours this year to get my fill of the book festival.  How dare people schedule other events on the day of the Book Festival.  What are they thinking?

I met lots of authors, including some notable YA authors.   Authors are my rock stars and I was super excited to meet these amazing authors.

S.A. Bodeen- YA author of The Compound, Fallout, The Raft and The Gardener

Geoff Herbach -YA author of Stupid Fast, Nothing Special and I'm With Stupid

Swati Avasthi- YA author of Split and Chasing Shadows

Kevin Cannon - Graphic novelist- Author of Far Arden and Crater XV

Marlon James -author of The Book of Night Women and John Crow's Devil

Alison McGhee- Author of Shadow Baby and 20 other books, including Children and YA novels.

Delia Ephron- Author of Sister, Mother, Husband, Dog and 9 other books plus screenplays.

(Delia spoke in depth about her family and her life.  She is an excellent speaker, very funny and endearing.)  Oh and I had my picture taken with her.  See below.

These are the books I came home with:

Crater XV by Kevin Cannon

The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

Guantanamo Boy (A signed copy) by Anna Perera

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (The third book in the Chaos Walking Series)

And 3 books of Poetry

Salt Heart by Kate Hallett Dayton

Earth's Appetite by Margaret Hasse

The Heart of All This Is:  Reflections on Home- Edited by Jim Perlman

My bag was HEAVY!

That's not all, I got an email from Graywolf Press today (I love this press because they publish awesome books) and they are sending me a copy of On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman.  Yay, I am doing the happy dance.

Plus I met a fellow Minnesota Book Blogger named Kim and her blog is Sophisticated Dorkiness

I love meeting new people and I don't know many other MN book bloggers.  Check out her blog.

All in all I had a great day and I can't wait for next year's festival.  Thanks Rain Taxi for setting up such a great event, year after year, you rock.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

February 11, 1910.  On cold, snowy day Ursula Todd is born with the umbilical cord around her neck.  She dies.  Darkness fell.

February 11, 1910 Ursula Todd is born on a cold, snowy day and begins her life again, when the doctor cuts the umbilical cord around her neck with a scissors, just in time.

So marks the days of Ursula Todd's life, because as she grows, she also dies and then begins her life anew. The story always brings you back to February 11, 1910.  Ursula is born into middle class English family.  Her father is a banker and they live in the countryside, in a modest home with a cook and a housekeeper.  She has 3 siblings and grew up in the shadow of World War 1.  Life after Life is about Ursula's time living before, during and after, World War II.

"No point in thinking, she said briskly, you just have to get on with your life.  We only have one after all, we should try and do our best.  We can never get it right, but we must try."

"What if we had a chance to do it again and again, Teddy said, until we finally get it right?  Wouldn't that be wonderful?" pg. 446

Ursula does get the chance to live her life, again and again, although she doesn't know it.  She has a vague sense of deja' vu or that something is different about her but really she is just living her life as best as she can.

Life after Life is a unique and unusual story because the main character keeps dying and being re-born and the details of the story continually change.  As a reader, you need to keep track of the details as the story builds to a climatic conclusion.  Let me just say, there are a lot of details in this book of 500 pages.  The story is told in fragments and jumps throughout time and history and it is up to the reader to figure what is happening and how it connects to the bigger premise of the book.

I read this book in three formats, first as a library ebook, then as an audio book and I finished it in a print edition.  I would not recommend the audio book as I felt it was much harder to know where you were in time and space and to connect the dots of the story, because in the print and electronic editions there are many line or text breaks and you can't really tell that in audio format.

Overall I liked the story and was intrigued by it.  Atkinson experimented with  style, time and space.  I felt it was a lot like the Groundhog Day movie in some ways (idea mostly) but yet completely different.  Ursula is a great character and the most developed.  Some parts of the story had me on the edge of my seat and other times, I was not interested at all.

This is the first book I have read by Atkinson and I really want to read more of her books.  I think Life After Life explores fascinating questions about life.   I would really like to do things over sometimes and I wonder what life would be like if I made different choices.  Choices that you make affect others and it is interesting to ponder how your life would be different.

Life After Life is an intellectual read so you must prepare yourself to think deeply.

Sugarhouse Giveaway

Sugarhouse Giveaway


Matt Batt is the October Author in the Spotlight here on Book Snob and he is giving away three copies of his book, Sugarhouse, Turning the Neighborhood Crack House into Our Home Sweet Home to Book Snob followers who live in the U.S.  Yay!

Here is the Synopsis from GoodReads:
An improbably funny account of how the purchase and restoration of a disaster of a fixer-upper saves a young marriage

When a season of ludicrous loss tests the mettle of their marriage, Matthew Batt and his wife decide not to call it quits. They set their sights instead on the purchase of a dilapidated house in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City. With no homesteading experience and a full-blown quarter-life crisis on their hands, these perpetual grad students/waiters/nonprofiteers decide to seek salvation through renovation, and do all they can to turn a former crack house into a home. Dizzy with despair, doubt, and the side effects of using the rough equivalent of napalm to detoxify their house, they enter into full-fledged adulthood with power tools in hand.

Heartfelt and joyous, Sugarhouse is the story of how one couple conquers adversity and creates an addition to their family, as well as their home.


Contest Rules:
Fill out the Rafflecopter form.
Must be a resident of the U.S. or Canada
Ends 10/31 at Midnight.
Good Luck!!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Crossing by Jim Murphy

The Crossing. How George Washington Saved the American Revolution by Jim Murphy

The Crossing is a 80 page children's book that highlights the early battles of the American Revolution when George Washington is chosen to command the Continental army in 1775.  Washington had some military experience but the Continental army did not and they were facing a well-trained, large British army.  The British invasion begins in New York and the Continental army faced lost battles and men who deserted.  As Washington's army decreased in size and he lost or retreated from battle, he was becoming increasingly worried that he might not be able to train the army to defeat the British.

The decisive battle that turned the tide of the war, in favor of the Continental army took place after Washington crossed the Delaware river in the middle of the night.  The Crossing is an excellent historical retelling of the beginning of the American Revolution.  It is full of maps, pictures, and even gives a description of the famous painting on the cover by Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze.

If you want to know the true story of the beginning of the American Revolution told in eloquent, simplified text you need to check out The Crossing.  The American army was truly the underdog in this war with the British and it makes you understand the significant odds that Washington was up against.  The Crossing contains an extensive travel guide to sites of the Revolution, an index, a timeline and a list of books to continue to feed your inquisitive mind.  I found the book to be informative and fascinating.  Of course, as a history teacher I am a bit biased.

The Unbearable Book Club Giveaway Winners!

The Unbearable Book Club Giveaway Winners!


I'm back from a mini Fall vacation on Madeline Island on Lake Superior.  The weather was gloomy but I brought a stack of books and covered up with a warm blanket and read.  It was heavenly.

Hometown Track, Minnesota Author in the Spotlight for September, Julie Schumacher is giving away 2 copies of her young adult book, The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, to Book Snob followers who live in the U.S and Canada.  I am excited to announce the winners of this creatively written, unconventional book club book.  And the winners are...

Carrie from In the Hammock Blog
Jeanne from Alabama.

Congratulations Ladies.  Enjoy your new book!

Here is an excerpt from my book review:

I love the creativity that Julie Schumacher incorporates in her novel The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls.  The characters are interesting, the plot is stimulating and I felt like an honorary member of the book club.  Each chapter begins with a Vocabulary term from AP Literature and the whole book is Adrienne's summer essay that she turns in, in the Fall.  I really liked how the book was set up and formatted.

BlogFest Contest Winner!

Blog Fest Contest Winner!

Geez, sorry I am so behind on announcing my contest winners.
I went on vacation last week with my family to Madeline Island (one of the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior) and so I was just busy getting my lessons done, packing, and planning my trip.  Plus the hubby had a birthday last week so had to bake a cake, shop and wrap gifts.  Wow, it is hard work to be a wife and mother in this world.

So now I am finally announcing the winner of a 12 dollar Amazon gift card.
So congratulations to ......

Mary K of Dark Thoughts Blog

She is the winner of the Amazon Gift Card.
Yay, Mary.  Enjoy.

I will leave you with a picture of my trip to Madeline Island.  The weather was HORRIBLE.  Rainy, windy, cold and miserable.  Gale force winds, white caps on the lake and so we mostly stayed indoors.  We had one day that it didn't rain on us but it was gloomy and cold. Yet Lake Superior is so beautiful and it was fun to watch the big waves come in and the leaves are just beginning to change.

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

Help for the Haunted by John Searles

Sylvie's parents have an unusual profession, they help people who belief they are haunted by demons.  They are devoutly religious people and have two daughters, one who they believe is "good" and the other one.  Sylvie is the "good" one. One night her parents receive a call in the middle of night to meet their oldest daughter Rose at a church in town.  They wake Sylvie, drive to the church in the middle of a snowstorm and go inside.  When they don't come out, Sylvie goes inside to discover them dead on the alter, murdered and she's the only witness.

Sylvie is not sure who she saw in the church or who killed her parents, and as her life unravels, she thinks back upon her family life to discover within her what her mother already knew.

"You know the truth already. What I will say is this: each of us is born into this life with a light inside of us. Some, like yours, burn brighter than others. You don't see that yet, but I do. What's most important is to never let that light go out, because when you do, it means you've lost yourself to the darkness. It means you've lost your hope. And hope is what makes this world a beautiful place."

Help for the Haunted is a page turning, scary, hide under the covers, don't go in the basement kind of novel.  OK, it wasn't that scary but it definitely gave me some eerie, creepy, scary feelings about dolls, basements and ghosts.  I think John Searles could have named the book, The Light in the Basement or Don't go in the Basement, OK?

The novel is told in alternating chapters as Sylvie tries to unravel the mystery of who killed her parents juxtaposed with events that happened in her childhood and the people her parents tried to help.  Help for the Haunted is a unique, paranormal mystery.  It is also a coming of age story.  I tend not to like traditional mysteries and Help for the Haunted is not a traditional mystery.  Searles reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock.

I love a book where I can't figure out whodunit and John Searles kept me guessing right up to the end.  I swear, I didn't see the ending coming and that rarely happens to me.

Help for the Haunted is the perfect read for a haunted October.
Just don't answer the phone if it rings in the middle of the night.
It could be one of John Searles characters calling.

Announcing the October Author in the Spotlight

Announcing the October Author in the Spotlight

Happy October Everyone.
It is a beautiful day here in Minnesota.

I have a busy month planned for October.  I am traveling to Madeline Island, located in Wisconsin on Lake Superior.  I have never been there and am looking forward to exploring this enchanting place.  The Twin Cities Book Festival is this month and tons of authors will be there.  I can't wait, as it is one of my favorite local, literary events.  I am also attending a reading retreat with the Women's Press at the end of the month and so I have a ton of books to read this month, including  Sugarhouse by the October Author in the Spotlight, Matt Batt.

Here is the Synopsis from GoodReads:
An improbably funny account of how the purchase and restoration of a disaster of a fixer-upper saves a young marriage

When a season of ludicrous loss tests the mettle of their marriage, Matthew Batt and his wife decide not to call it quits. They set their sights instead on the purchase of a dilapidated house in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City. With no homesteading experience and a full-blown quarter-life crisis on their hands, these perpetual grad students/waiters/nonprofiteers decide to seek salvation through renovation, and do all they can to turn a former crack house into a home. Dizzy with despair, doubt, and the side effects of using the rough equivalent of napalm to detoxify their house, they enter into full-fledged adulthood with power tools in hand.

Heartfelt and joyous, Sugarhouse is the story of how one couple conquers adversity and creates an addition to their family, as well as their home.

This month you can expect a book review, a contest, a guest post and an author interview.  It is going to be a great month here on BookSnob.

Have a wonderful month of October. 
Check back often.