Sunday Salon

Can hardly believe that it is Sunday again! Boy did this week fly by. Unfortunately, I did not finish The House at Riverton in time for last Monday's book club but did this morning. Everyone at book club thankfully did not spoil the ending for me, and I was still able to participate. It shocked me that more people did not have a favorable reaction to this read. Here's my take...

Title: The House at Riverton
Author: Kate Morton
Rating: Four 1/2 stars
Number of pages: 471 pages
Finished: 1/11/2009
This story is composed of the reflections of a 99-year old woman who has kept secrets for most of her life. And in order for her to pass peacefully into the greater beyond, she needs to share the truth that she has kept bottled up inside. Grace was a 14-year old impressionable girl when she entered the "great house" to begin her years of servitude and loyalty. She adheres to all of the many traditions that were part and parcel of the time at the beginning of World War I in England. Although there are flashes between today's world and the early part of the 20th Century up until the mid 1920s, we know little of what transpired in the intervening years unless told to us in passing. I agree with my reading group on one point...I wish that the author explored how Grace changed her social station after World War II.
I thought that Kate Morton painted the time, place and atmosphere of both the Riverton House and London perfectly...often times, I felt as though I was with Grace, and sisters Hannah and Emmeline too. The reader knows at the start that the suicide of a famous poet was not a suicide at all, and that the two sister witnesses are linked in some way my prior events to what indeed happened. But there are even more secrets that are revealed along the way to the final ending.
If you have read, The Thirteenth Tale and enjoyed that book, you most certainly with find The House at Riverton equally riveting and a pleasure to read.

Up next, The Good Guy by Dean Koontz, apparently, this was one of Stephen King's favorite reads and thus the impetus of why it was purchased as a holiday gift for me.

Sunday Salon

Thought that I would kick-off the new year with a post...okay, so don't fall off your seat as you scratch your head in wonderment & ponder the question...how long with this last? No promises except to say that I will do my best to be better in 2009.
For the first Sunday Salon of the new year, I am in the midst of reading a book loaned to me by my friend Jill over at The Magic Lasso entitled "The House of Riverton" by Kate Morton (actually her advance reader's copy). Back in October, I picked up the book & started to read but put it down because I knew within the first couple of pages that it would be an excellent selection for a discussion book for my Womens Reading Group (only female authors are allowed). And lo and behold, it is the first pick for 2009...discussion tomorrow night.
As one turns the pages, the reader is vividly transported back to another time & place...pre-World War I England. It is like falling into an episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs." The narrator is a 90+ old woman, former servant at the House of Riverton, who is reflecting on life...brought on by the request of a documentary producer to tell the story of an event that took place years ago...a mysterious suicide of the gentry's family friend. Or was it a suicide? I'm about half way through the book & thoroughly enjoying the wordplay, the history, & the flashing between time (one of my favorite writing methods to read). I keep contemplating with wonder how society moved away from such strict delineations in social strata...how does that happen? Someone finally just gets tired of hearing "but that's the way it has always been done" and becomes a trailblazer.

Should be a lively discussion tomorrow night.

Still knitting up a storm (actually did three test knits last year & would love to continue the tradition in 2009) but most importantly I bit the spinning bug (cycling I already had but fiber this time around).
In a nutshell, I had a mini lesson when we attended the Estes Park Wool Market festival last June from none other than Maggie Casey herself, author of "Start Spinning." I purchased a hi/low whorl from her store's booth, a 1.1 oz Schacht spindle & spun my first fiber from Pigeonroof Studios over the summer & made an unoriginal hat for the daughter of a friend. But I'm finally making some headway because I either practice every day or read something online to further my skills.
Currently I'm coveting some of the unique lightweight spindles that Mary creates over at Butterfly Girl Designs namely her paua shell version & I have my eye on the lamborghini of drop spindles, a Golding. The goal in 2009 is to spin up laceweight yarn to knit up my favorite project, lace patterned shawls.

And last but not least, E becomes a teenager today...how did he become 13 soooo fast!

Sunday Salon

It's that time of week again for Sunday Salon. Well so far today I read the last 80 pages of Great Expectations...I originally thought it would be a lot more but yesterday was Saturday Salon while we waited for the cable company to fix our box for the third time this week. Currently reading The Nixie's Song, which I thought was Book One of the Spiderwick Chronicles but in actuality it is Beyond Spiderwick. I wanted to read it first and then pass along to E to read but the target age is way lower than I had thought...i was expecting more along the lines of the Chronicles of Narnia but sadly not. At least when I'm done I will have completed another mini challenge and can then pick up The Muse Asylum. Plans later are to write up the reviews all at one time and then hop over to My Year of Reading Dangerously blog to comment on Great Expectations.

Sunday Salon

Title: Night Fall
Author: Nelson DeMille
Rating: Disappointing
Genre: Thriller
Number of pages: 488
Finished: 1-18-08
Challenges: Chunkster, A to Z Titles (N), 101 Books in 1,001 Days
I really enjoy reading thrillers...the adrenaline rush as you turn pages to see what happens next and vicariously live through the characters. Not so much with Night Fall. Don't get me wrong the premise was good...a couple who are both married to other people decide to videotape having sex on the beach (that definitely sounds crass) and manage to film the crash of TWA Flight 800. The tape would prove to the world that the crash was precipitated by a missile rather than mechanical failure as the government has claimed. Enter our hero John Corey who five years later becomes embroiled in finding out the truth. I have to say that I felt extremely gypped by the ending...major cop out by the author. If you are in the mood for a thriller, pick up The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille instead.



So yesterday to get the bitter taste out of my mouth, I started to read The Memory Keeper's Daughter...yes, a little late to the party just like I did with The Kite Runner. And as part of Sunday Salon, I've read about 140 pages so far today with about another 80 to go. And truthfully, as soon as I'm done I will REALLY start reading Great Expectations.