Tag Archives: recommendation

Music: Anna Calvi, one of my favourite new artists

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Prior to the shortlist of this year’s Mercury prize, I’d never heard of Anna Calvi. I downloaded her self-titled album and put it on while I was writing… and I had to stop writing and listen. Her voice reminds me a bit of PJ Harvey, and there’s something about how the songs slide into one another; you’re never quite sure where one ended and the next began.

It isn’t a long record; 10 songs and 40 minutes. At the moment it’s close to becoming the theme music for my work-in-progress, THE ORPHEUS.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo267BTLnZk]

A new book!

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I get excited over books. A new book by a favourite author? I’m dancing in the aisles of the bookstore (or tapping my fingers eagerly on the keys). So today, when the book has come in the mail (thank you Book Depository!), I can’t wait to get started.

What’s the book? Why, the latest in the Simone de Beauvoir series from the University of Illinois…

I have all the other books in this series (so far), and I can hardly wait to crack this one open!

From the U of Illinois site:

“The Useless Mouths” and Other Literary Writings brings to English-language readers literary writings–several previously unknown–by Simone de Beauvoir. Culled from sources including various American university collections, the works span decades of Beauvoir’s career. Ranging from dramatic works and literary theory to radio broadcasts, they collectively reveal fresh insights into Beauvoir’s writing process, personal life, and the honing of her philosophy.

I’m especially looking forward to reading the radio broadcasts and some of the dramatic works. If I don’t finish it by Christmas, I know exactly what I’ll be doing with my days off…

By the way, if you’re looking for a bit of an introduction to some of Simone de Beauvoir’s work, pick up one of the earlier works from the Beauvoir series, entitled ‘Philosophical Writings.’ It has quite a few of her scholarly essays. If you’re more of a memoir type, snag her ‘Wartime Diary’ or her ‘Diary of a Philosophy Student, Vol 1’. (And if fiction is your thing, ‘The Mandarins’ or ‘She Came to Stay’ are worth every penny.)

Quickie book recommendations #2

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Today’s books are some of my more recent favourites.

The first, I snagged from Carina Press on its release day. It’s a fantastic romantic tale set in Antarctica, with an emotionally bruised heroine who is immensely relatable.

The second, I read awhile ago, but I remember hearing an interview with the author about her time in Highgate cemetery and I wished that I could do the same sort of immersion for all my stories.

The third, and unfortunately hard to find book, I received in a collection of a dozen pulp fiction (mostly crime/noir) novels. As you might guess, the mention of a torch singer caught my eye. And, as is appropriate for “Movember“, the first chapter begins with “Let me begin with the mustache. I shaved it off.”

The blurbs for the first two are taken from Carina Press and Amazon, respectively, while the third is from the cover copy of my battered pulp paperback.

Icebound, by Julie Rowe (Carina Press, 50K word novella)
Dr. Emilie Saunderson is driven to finish her late husband’s research. Her quest brings her to Antarctica, where she hopes to find a measure of peace in the isolated and icy wilderness. It’s the last place on earth she expects to be given a second chance at love.

Tom Wolinski loves his work at the bottom of the world. Damaged by his dark past, he has vowed never to get close to anyone—a promise that’s easy to keep in a place with no permanent residents. That is, until Emilie arrives, and he’s irresistibly drawn to her warmth and inner strength.

Emilie has no desire to get involved with another adventurer, and Tom has made it clear he’s not interested in putting down roots. But as they work together to survive in the harshest of climates, they turn to one another for comfort. Is the heat between them enough to melt the ice around their hearts, and bind them together forever?

Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner, 406pgs)
Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the girls’ aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.

The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including—perhaps—their aunt.

Too French and Too Deadly, by Henry Kane (Avon, 1955, out of print)
A tempting torch singer with flame-red hair – and a standing invitation to murder in her eyes – meets Peter Chambers…

And when fiction’s most eye-catching, hard-boiled private eye takes on the luscious lady, all he wants with her is privacy. Instead he finds himself in a sealed room with a dead man – and a uniquely puzzling case of homicial “suicide.”

Movie: The Woman in the Fifth

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The Woman in the Fifth stars Ethan Hawke (Before Sunset) and Kristin Scott Thomas (Ne le dis à personne, The English Patient). Tom is a writer and university lecturer in Paris to see his estranged wife and daughter. He is robbed and is stuck at a rundown hotel in a Paris suburb, scraping by with an under-the-table job of questionable legality. He meets Margit at a literary evening and soon they are having a torrid affair. When not with Margit (who will only see him after 4pm), he spends his time writing a lengthy letter to his six-year-old daughter and getting to know the waitress/barmaid at the hotel.

The film starts off normally. That is, totally comprehensible and almost ordinary, but once Tom meets Margit, things become strange. It’s that turning point (as in the film The Last Minute when Billy Byrne takes drugs and everything in the film becomes slightly surreal) where you’re not sure what is real and what is not. It’s a dark film, tension-filled, yet also mostly quiet. There are some dramatic and gory points but a lot is not explained.

I often prefer films where things aren’t so cut and dry at the end; closure is not always the best ending. Most films with definitive endings are ones that I cease to think about the moment the credits roll. Far better to have a film be strange and provoke thought and speculation, or leave some puzzlement. In this case, the film was an excellent advertisement for the novel (by Douglas Kennedy), as I’m inclined to pick it up to see what the screenwriter cut out.

Welcome to Bandit Creek!

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In the spring of 2011, a group of authors got together and created the town of Bandit Creek, Montana, nestled in the Rocky Mountains. Everything happens in Bandit Creek: we have paranormal romances, mysteries, historical, you name it. We cover all genres and the books range from 1867 to the present. You’ll meet strange residents, search out lost treasure, hang out with flappers and bootleggers, see ghosts, experience love stories, and have a frolicking good time.

The inaugural release is ‘Lost’, by Vivi Anna.

Kirsten Morgan can hear the dead. And now they are calling to her, to come home to Bandit Creek.

A girl has gone missing, and the law don’t have any leads. But the last thing Sheriff Samuel Morgan wants to see is his famous psychic daughter in his office telling him how to do his job. At odds for years, Kirsten doesn’t know how to talk to her father but she knows she has to push him to a place he doesn’t want to go. Because the dead are talking, and she has to answer, or lose her mind forever.

It’s a fantastic tale and will keep you reading right to the end. Vivi Anna is the author of more than a dozen books, including the Nina Decker books ‘Glimmer’ and ‘Dawning’, the YA novel ‘Static’ and the Valorian Chronicles from Harlequin.

New books will be released twice a month and you can find them at the Bandit Creek Books website, and for purchase on Amazon and Smashwords.

Shakespeare & Company: La Meilleure Librairie

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From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swiv/1447506436/ (creative commons)

Oh how I love this bookshop. I sometimes wish I could own a bookshop like this, or have my apartment be filled with books so that it resembles the shop’s interior. There’s just something so cosy about the shop, with its velvet chairs nestled amongst shelves filled to bursting. It’s the kind of place I could (and did) spend hours in. My next trip to Paris (whenever that will be) will include a lot of time.

From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m-gem/3733409578/ (creative commons)

Jeremy Mercer wrote a book called ‘Time Was Soft There’ about Shakespeare & Co. It’s a bit of a memoir, but I love the details of his time spent there in the shop, sleeping on one of the beds tucked away, the people he met there, and his time in Paris. The film ‘Before Sunset’ also begins in the shop, where Ethan Hawke’s character is autographing his book and doing a reading.

If you’re ever in Paris – you must go. Check out their website too. Curl up in that green velvet chair and flip through Jean Genet’s ‘Our Lady of the Flowers’, or poetry by Baudelaire…

Movie: Midnight in Paris

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Watching ‘Midnight in Paris’, written and directed by Woody Allen, is a bit like walking into a nostalgia shop, except the entirety of Paris is the shop. The film commences with a series of location shots of Paris, setting the tone and the scene for the rest of the film. For those familiar with the city, favourite haunts and landmarks trigger that nostalgic feeling. For those unfamiliar with the city, the montage might get a tad dull, though one would hope that an unfamiliarity of Paris would not preclude seeing this film.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood screenwriter visiting Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. He’s obsessed with 1920s Paris, and one night after getting lost walking back to his hotel, at the very stroke of midnight, he’s picked up by revelers in an old Peugeot. He finds himself somehow transported to 1920s Paris, partying with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, meeting Hemingway, Picasso, Gertrude Stein… it’s a veritable name dropping of ‘20s literary society. On his second visit, he is enchanted by a young woman dating Picasso. He falls in love with her, and returns to the 1920s via the car at the stroke of midnight to visit her, and to get Stein’s views on his unpublished novel. As their visit to Paris lengthens, his relationship with his fiancée is souring, and he has to decide what he should do with his life.

The film has an excellent ensemble cast: Kathy Bates as Stein, Marion Cotillard as Gil’s love interest Adriana, Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, and Gad Elmaleh as the detective, among others. Corey Stoll especially was a delight as the very upfront and opinionated Ernest Hemingway. The film is an English student’s dream: my theatre companion squealed at the sight of T.S. Eliot, and then of Paul Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. I wonder if Woody Allen’s nostalgic Paris is the 1920s?

I know what era of Paris I would like to visit, should a car come for me at midnight… the 1940s-1950s, visiting the cafés and rubbing shoulders with the existentialists. But of course, you knew that, right?

Blog post round-up: July 15

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It’s Stampede time here in Calgary, so what better way to celebrate than to do a blog post round-up? (and it’s also my birthday, so I want to do a quick post before I go out to see the new Harry Potter…)

These are just a few of the blogs and articles I have been checking out this past week. Happy Weekend!

Books: A few ebook recommendations for today

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As most of you know, I read like a fiend. Since I got my Kindle, I devour even more stories. Here are a few of my favourite Kindle reads:

All are excellent. Two of the authors, Vivi Anna and Anya Winter, are also members of my local RWA chapter. And I met the awesome Lynne Silver in NYC – as much a delight in person as her stories are to be read. There’s a bit of everything here: Anya’s story is a contemporary erotic novella, Vivi’s is a contemporary paranormal, and Lynne’s is a historical erotic romance.

Quickie book recommendations #1

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I’ve been reading a lot lately and here is a short list of books I’d recommend:

  • By the Book (Scarlett Parrish)
    Daniel Cross. That’s all I need to say.
  • Fatal Affair (Marie Force)
    Fantastic romantic suspense, set in Washington, D.C.
  • The Lion of Kent (Aleksandr Voinov & Kate Cotoner)
    Historical m/m, England during the Crusades. A squire and his lord.
  • The Debutante’s Dilemma (Elyse Mady)
    A debutante has to choose between suitors … or does she?

Four fantastic stories, well worth the read. You won’t regret it.