Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia’s minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe’s shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb’s crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks’s beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha’s Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb’s Crossing further establishes Brooks’s place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.

Thanks to Viking, I am able to offer one copy of the recently released paperback edition of Geraldine Brooks’ historical novel Caleb’s Crossing to one of my readers. Here’s how to enter:

~ Leave a comment on this post. To make it fun, tell me what your favorite work of historical fiction is.

~ This giveaway is open to readers in Canada and the US only. If you are Canadian, please take into account that, if you win, I will need your phone number, as well as mailing address, to send to the publisher.

~ One entry per person.

~ All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. PST, Friday, June 1, 2012. On Saturday, June 2nd, I will use Random.org to draw the winner.

Good luck!

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The boys and I have been enjoying this series since the very first one came out years ago. Each book has been progressively darker, necessarily so, but we are always anxious for the next book to to come out. Fear was not a disappointment; we were thoroughly engrossed from start to finish. My only beef is that we have to wait until some unknown time next year for the sixth – and final – book. After the game-changing ending of Fear, we are dying to know how things turn out for the kids in the Fayz.

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: YA dystopian fiction
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audiobook from the public library
Audiobook reader: Sarah Drew
First line: It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.

I reread Delirium via audio to prepare for listening to book two, Pandemonium. I’m glad I did, because while I thoroughly enjoyed it when I read it the first time, I have read so much dystopian fiction since then that I’d forgotten a lot of the story. This one is great on audio. When I first realized that Sarah Drew is the actress from Grey’s Anatomy, I was worried I’d hear Dr. Kepner’s voice in my head. My fears were unfounded, though, as Drew was the perfect choice to read Lena’s story. I’m excited to listen to Pandemonium soon – it just arrived at the library for me today!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dystopian fiction, science fiction, YA fiction

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Goodreads blurb: Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweeting has just done the unthinkable. She’s made a mistake so huge, it’ll wreck any chance of a partnership.

Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train, and ends up in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she’s mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as housekeeper. Her employers have no idea they’ve hired a lawyer–and Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. She can’t sew on a button, bake a potato, or get the #@%# ironing board to open. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope – and finds love – is a story as delicious as the bread she learns to bake.

But will her old life ever catch up with her? And if it does…will she want it back?

I love Sophie Kinsella’s books on audio, especially when I’m desperately in need of a laugh. Sure, you have to suspend your disbelief a bit to accept the predicament her heroines get themselves into, but that is something I have no problem doing when you have characters as lovable as Samantha Sweeting.

While I loved the main character, it is the supporting characters in The Undomestic Goddess that provide much of the humor. Samantha’s new employers, Trish and Eddie, are new money, and they’re not used to having “help.” Of course, if they were really landed gentry, Samantha would never have been able to sneak her way into their household. They could have been completely boorish, but Kinsella keeps them from becoming mere caricatures by revealing how human they are.

The romance with Nathaniel is a bit predictable, but still quite enjoyable. And it is Samantha’s relationship with Nathaniel’s mum, who teaches Samantha how to cook, that is my favorite.

Kinsella leaves the ending a bit open-ended, and this is one time that I wasn’t bothered by it. In fact, I like the fact that I can think about Samantha and Nathaniel and imagine what they’re doing right now.

Audio notes: Rosalyn Landor narrated Kinsella’s I’ve Got Your Number, and also reads the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd. I love her – she is definitely one of my favorite British female narrators.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction

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It took me a while to narrow it down. I wanted a mix of classics and modern, genres, YA and adult. And they had to be books that I think would appeal to both men and women. After much pondering, here are the books I would put in my bookish goodies bags:

Persuasion by Jane Austen. Some of you may question whether this will appeal to men, but I believe every man should read at least one Austen, and this is one of the shortest. Men, believe me when I tell you that women will be impressed when you tell them you’ve read Jane Austen.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. No one writes characters like Dickens – and his sentences are not to be missed.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. This is a story about fathers and sons, full of lyricism, magic, and mystery.

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski. This is the story of a journalist who follows his girlfriend to Thailand and becomes embroiled in the mystery behind an American anthropologist’s suicide. A beautifully written page-turner.

The Trouble With Poetry: And Other Poems by Billy Collins. Because if any book can prove that poetry is for everyone, this is it.

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. Because one of my life goals is to get more people to read Wendell Berry.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. This one goes in the bag to disprove all the naysayers that think YA fiction is only for the kids.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Because you’re never too old to read a book with beautiful pictures.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. One of the best works of American literature.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. One of my favorite literary couples ever.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. One of the most engrossing works of non-fiction I’ve ever read.

How Reading Changed My Life: Essays by Anna Quindlen. Because no bookish goodie bag would be complete without a book about books.

So there you have my goodie bag. I wish I could give one to each of you. Which books would you choose for your hypothetical goodie bag?

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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The Avengers – As amazing and awesome as I hoped it would be.

Contraband – Just okay; didn’t suck as much as his last few.

We Bought a Zoo – The whole family loved this! Perfect family movie night choice.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Then, Tuesday night, I heard from one of my sisters, and one of their kids is going through something very difficult. My heart hurts for him.

We also discovered this week that the Alternative Learning Experience program that we use to homeschool is discontinuing the enrichment classes that my kids love. So Friday, we watched the cinematography class’s short film, Noah’s guitar concert, and Jonathan’s piano recital – knowing that these classes were coming to an end. We are going to try to find a way to pay for private guitar for Noah, and I can continue Jon’s piano, but the cinematography class and art classes are going to be missed. Noah has been the chief editor for the past two semesters, doing all the editing for two separate short films, and has learned a lot and found his passion, and it’s going away. It’s hard to watch your almost 14-year-old son struggle not to cry as he says goodbye to a teacher that has meant a lot to him. I won’t go into all the reasons that the classes are being cut, but suffice it to say that sometimes I really hate politics.

So, this is one week that I am glad to see the tail end of. It did end on a high note – with a night spent with my ladies at church, laughing and talking. I needed it.

Today, should also be a good one – church this morning, and then off to my folks’ house to see my baby sister, Marni, who flew in from St. Louis last night. I haven’t seen her in two years, so we have some catching up to do!

Bookwise, I only finished one this week, but it was an amazing one – Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. Otherwise, I am reading and listening to the same books that I was last week.

In print:
~ Lottery by Patricia Wood – This one is for a read-along with Kelly.
~ A Collection of Essays by George Orwell – This is my bedtime book.
~ The Annotated Emma by Jane Austen and David M. Shapard – Review copy.
~ My New American Life by Francine Prose – For a book tour.
~ Fear by Michael Grant – Our current read-aloud.
~ Being Flynn by Nick Flynn – Review copy.

On audio:
~ The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl
~ Delirium by Lauren Oliver – Re-read via audio before reading or listening to book two.

What are you doing today? Any big plans – bookish or otherwise?

On the blog this week:
~ Book Review: Pure by Julianna Baggott
~ DVD Review: This Means War
~ Book Review: Ninepins by Rosy Thornton
~ Book Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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They are the CIA’s best, trained for any situation…except one. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment plays the ultimate spy game as two best friends fight for the right of one woman’s hand in This Means War, coming to Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download May 22. Starring Academy Award® winner Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises), the laugh-out-loud comedy gets even better on Blu-ray with three alternate endings that answer the question – what if she chose the other guy?

The world’s deadliest CIA operatives, FDR Foster (Pine) and Tuck (Hardy), are inseparable partners and best friends until they fall for the same woman (Witherspoon). Having once helped bring down entire enemy nations, they are now employing their incomparable skills and an endless array of high-tech gadgetry against their greatest nemesis – each other.

Directed by visionary filmmaker McG (Charlie’s Angels), This Means War features a funny and talented supporting cast including Chelsea Handler (“Are You There, Chelsea?”), Angela Bassett (Notorious) and Abigail Spencer (Cowboys & Aliens).

Ugh. This is a really bad movie. I’m not particularly picky with movies – not nearly as picky as I am about the books I read – and I wish I hadn’t wasted my time on this one. Even the total hot factor of the two male leads didn’t make up for the horrible writing, unfunny humor, disgusting best friend character, and completely predictable ending.

I wasn’t even remotely interested in watching the alternate endings, because I knew who she would end up with – and what the end of the other guy’s story would be – before both guys even met the Reese Witherspoon character – it’s THAT predictable. Reese Witherspoon didn’t have chemistry with either guy, and the scenes with her and her best friend (or was she her sister?) were revolting. I know that crude humor for the ladies is the new “in” thing (a la Bridesmaids), but it’s not my thing. Do women out there actually have graphic and crude conversations with their best friends about sex? I can talk to my best friend about anything – and I really mean anything – but there is a line between openness and sharing and “Ew – now I can’t get that image out of my head!”

I’m not sure I’ve ever given such a horrible review to a movie I was sent for free. Hopefully I’ll still get movies to review – but I couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend this one.

This Means War is available now on Blu-ray and DVD. The special features include a gag real, alternate endings, commentaries, and more.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Goodreads quote: Deep in the Cambridgeshire fens, Laura is living alone with her 12-year old daughter Beth, in the old tollhouse known as Ninepins. She’s in the habit of renting out the pumphouse, once a fen drainage station, to students, but this year she’s been persuaded to take in 17-year-old Willow, a care-leaver with a dubious past, on the recommendation of her social worker, Vince. Is Willow dangerous or just vulnerable? It’s possible she was once guilty of arson; her mother’s hippy life is gradually revealed as something more sinister; and Beth is in trouble at school and out of it. Laura’s carefully ordered world seems to be getting out of control. With the tension of a thriller, Ninepins explores the idea of family, and the volatile and changing relationships between mothers and daughters, in a landscape that is beautiful but – as they all discover – perilous.

I’ve read two of Rosy Thornton’s previous books, Crossed Wires and Tapestry of Love, and enjoyed them very much. I also enjoyed Ninepins, but I worry for other readers who choose the book based on the cover blurb. It’s that little phrase “with the tension of a thriller” that is misleading. Is this book more thriller-like than her previous two? Yes. Is it a thriller? No. It, is however, an extremely readable work of contemporary fiction.

Laura is a frustratingly real character. Her parenting skills drove me crazy! I am a much more involved parent with my teenage daughter than she is, and as I read, there were times I wished that I could sit her down and tell her that it is not her job to be her daughter’s friend! Am I friends with my teenage daughter? Absolutely. But I don’t back off and give her space when there is something very worrying going on in her life. (Okay, parenting rant over.)

I only feel that strongly about characters that seem completely real to me, and my reaction to Laura is a testament to Thornton’s ability to write authentic stories about flesh and blood people. Laura is someone I could imagine meeting on the street.

Willow is a character that is harder to pin down. Thornton does a good job of drawing out the suspense: is Willow simply a teenage girl who has had a horrible past and is in need of someone to love her? Or is she dangerous? And what about her bipolar mother who keeps showing up at Ninepins? Is she harmless and addled? Or does Laura need to be concerned for the safety of her daughter?

Beth is a typical 12-year-old girl, caught in that in-between time. She wants to be a teenager, but in so many ways is still a little girl. Her asthma has made it difficult for Laura to let her go and have her freedom. Beth sees in Willow an older sister-type, someone to be looked up to, someone a little dangerous and wild, and the two become close.

While I said this book isn’t a thriller, it does have elements of suspense, and it did keep me wondering until the end about Willow and her motives for being at Ninepins. This was a hard book to put down, not only for the suspense, but because it also includes the beautiful descriptions of setting and the rhythms of daily life that I have come to love in this author’s work.

I always learn more about British culture and cuisine when I read one of Rosy Thornton’s books, and this one wasn’t any different. While reading, I looked up Jaffa Cakes, Battenberg Cake, and Maltesers.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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I have praised the author Wendell Berry so often here on my blog that I am afraid you, my readers, will weary of hearing his name. (If, by some chance, you have missed those ravings, you can read a concise declaration of my love for the man here.) At the risk of some of you thinking, “Oh, here she goes again!” – I am going to tell you just a bit about this perfect, perfect book, Jayber Crow.

For those of you who have read any of the other Port William novels or stories, you know that Jayber Crow is the town barber. He has had a unique place in the community – a listener to secrets, a keeper of stories, an observer of the best and worst of Port William. This book is, simply put, his story. At the end of his life, he looks back over its years, his travels away from and back to the Port William area, and also his personal journey to become the man he should be. It is, to put it as simply as possible, a truly beautiful book.

And, Bryan: you have asked me in the past which of Berry’s books you should start with. This is the one, my friend.

“I’d had the idea, once, that if I could get the chance before I died I would read all the good books there were. Now I began to see that I wasn’t apt to make it. This disappointed me, for I really wanted to read them all. But it consoled me in a way too; I could see that if I got them all read and had no more surprises in that line, I would have been sorry.” ~ p. 47

“Now I have had most of the life I am going to have, and I can see what it has been. I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error. But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led.” ~ p. 66

“Hate succeeds. This world give plentiful scope and means to hatred, which always finds its justifications and fulfills itself perfectly in time by the destruction of the things of time. That is why war is complete and spares nothing, balks at nothing, justifies itself by all that is sacred, and seeks victory by everything that is profane. Hell itself, the war that is always among us, is the creature of time, unending time, unrelieved by any light of hope.

But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time. It does not accept that limit. Of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here. It is not explainable or even justifiable. It is itself the justifier. We do not make it. If it did not happen to us, we could not imagine it. It includes the world and time as a pregnant woman includes her child whose wrongs she will suffer and forgive. It is in the world but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.” ~ p. 249

“I am a man, who has hoped, in time, that his life, when poured out at the end, would say, ‘Good-good-good-good-good!’ like a gallon jug of the prime local spirit. I am a man of losses, regrets, and griefs. I am an old man full of love. I am a man of faith.” ~ p. 356

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: commonplace book, literary fiction, wendell berry

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Goodreads blurb: Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it’s his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

I have read a lot of YA dystopian fiction – though nowhere near the amount that some bloggers have – and the post-apocalyptic world of Pure is the most terrifying setting of all. The Wretches, those outside the Dome, may have survived the Detonations, but their lives are one horror after another. They are the walking wounded, scarred, missing limbs. And many of them are fused with whatever they were holding or standing near when the Detonations occurred. Pressia was a little girl at the time, and she was holding her baby doll.

The terrors of the world the Wretches inhabit is made even more devastating in contrast to how the Pures live in the Dome. The Pures were the rich, the educated, those who could afford a place to hide when the Detonations occurred. They are supposedly waiting for the world outside the Dome to be ready for them to join the Wretches and rebuild civilization.

Pressia the Wretch meets Partridge the Pure, and they discover they both hold pieces to a connected past. They also discover that the Detonations may not have occurred for the reasons they had been told – and Partridge’s father, leader of the Dome, is at the heart of the corruption.

Pure is a bleak book, and the stark despair of the world might make it too horrible to read, but the strength of the characters keeps it from being utterly dark. Pressia, and her love for her grandfather. Bradwell, with the birds fused into his back, a reluctant hero. Partridge, seeking to understand why he is so different from his father and older brother. El Capitan, who starts out as a soldier of fortune, and yet is drawn into helping Pressia and Partridge. Their histories, their stories, their hope – that is what fuels this book and makes it well worth reading.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dystopian fiction, science fiction, YA fiction

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