The Reader's Place

Facelift in Progress

CoCo — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:14:38 +0000

After a long sabbatical, we here at The Reader’s Place have a facelift underway. If you are interested in participating at TRP in a moderator role, please contact me.

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Duped Again

CoCo — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:59:54 +0000

Berkley Books has canceled publication of “Angel at the Fence,” Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir, after the author revealed it was a fabrication; why didn’t they realize sooner? By all accounts, the Rosenblat’s have been guests on Oprah’s television program on multiple occasions.

Mr. and Mrs. Rosenblat appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1996, telling their story of meeting as children while Mr. Rosenblat was a prisoner at a subcamp of the infamous Buchenwald. Eleven years later the couple returned to Ms. Winfrey’s show, and Mr. Rosenblat got down on his knees to give his wife a new ring. Ms. Winfrey called it “the single greatest love story, in 22 years of doing this show, we’ve ever told on the air.”

Although Mr. Rosenblat’s memoir was pulled before it was ever published and therefore never had the chance to be a candidate for Ms. Winfrey’s book club, some viewers seemed to take the fabrication — and Ms. Winfrey’s endorsement of it — personally.

And it appears that the damage goes further…A children’s author, Laurie Friedman, was so inspired by an online news article she read about the Rosenblats that she wrote a children’s book based on his story. Lerner Publishing, the publisher of the book, “Angel Girl,” released in September, said earlier this week that it would not proceed with any reprints and would offer refunds for returned copies.

False memoirs are becoming more and more common these days, but for some reason, publishers (and Oprah) continue to disregard proper fact-checking. How do you feel this trend is affecting the reading public?

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Laugh Out Loud, Murderously Funny

CoCo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:28:25 +0000

My escapist reading habits tend to lead me toward the cozy mystery genre…and when I really need to change my outlook I go straight to authors that I know can deliver some good belly laughs. Here’s a list of a few Laugh Out Loud mysteries that I heartily recommend.

Dear Miss Demeanor, Joan Hess

At Farberville High, it’s reading, writing…and murder.Who knows what evil lurks in the halls of Farbervilles’ high school-or what blackmail is hidden in Miss Demeanor’s Falcon Crier advice column? Certainly not bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Claire Malloy-until her daughter Caron persuades her to substitute for disgraced column editor and journalism teacher Emily Parchester. Surely Miss Parchester cannot be guilty of embezzlement. But the petty charges graduate to murder when Principal Weiss gets his last licks from Miss Parchester’s peach compote. Miss Parchester herself, last seen at a local sanitarium, is suddenly missing. And now it’s up to Claire to find someone who’s been schooled in the fine art of murder…(Amazon.com)

Murder Makes Waves, Anne George

A pair of delightful and witty sisters, both in their sixties, captivate the natives and nearly everyone
else when they go sleuthing in Florida. Wealthy “big” sister Mary Alice (6′, 250 lbs.) invites “little” sister (5′1″, 105 lbs.) and two others to share her condo and enjoy the beach, but their discovery of a mangled body interrupts the fun. (From Library Journal)

I Gave You My Heart, but You Sold It Online, Dixie Cash

Salt Lick, Texas’ ace detectives Debbie Sue and Edwina are at it again, defying their husbands’ wishes by leaving their beauty parlor behind and hotfooting it out the door in pursuit of the latest criminal–or cheating husband, which, in their minds, is the same thing–in the guise of their alter egos, the Domestic Equalizers. But this time the cheating takes the form of credit-card theft, and the victim is none other than Debbie Sue’s ex-main squeeze, rodeo heartthrob Quint Matthews. (Booklist)

Night of the Living Deb, by Susan McBride

Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks isn’t the belle of any Dallas ball — and that’s just the way the
debutante dropout likes it! She’s got a good life and a great man: her defense attorney boyfriend, Brian Malone. Brian’s such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend’s bachelor party at a sleazy local “gentleman’s club.” So why is the groom-to-be saying that Brian left the bacchanal arm-in-arm with “the hottest body in the Lone Star State?” And what was that hot body doing stone-cold dead in the trunk of Brian’s car? (Amazon.com)

What books do you escape into?

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Whose Image?

LizzieD — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:51:54 +0000

I am just finishing Revisions: Seeing Torah Through a Feminist Lens by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, a very interesting book! In it she is seeking authentic ways for women to read Torah as an integral part of their lives. She succeeds on many levels for me, a Protestant Christian. Briefly, her commentaries on several women in the Old Testament (Eve, Leah and Rachel, Miriam and the other women of the Exodus including Moses’ wife Tzippora, and the daughters of Tzelophehad) are fresh and insightful. (Well, — anything about the daughters of Tzelophehad would have been fresh for me.) Her next excursion into the symbolism and rituals of blood and water are less compelling to me, but still interesting. She advocates a repossession of the mikveh, the pool for cleansing, as a ritual for celebrating the renewal and blessing of menses as well as other important events in women’s lives. Finally, she discusses gender language and the feminist attributes of God. Here, at the heart of her argument, I begin to feel some discomfort.

I have no problem at all with her position that “Women of today need a meaningful religious vocabulary around our biology as well as around our concerns…” (136). I have more problems with a quotation from Carol Christ, “As women struggle to create a new culture in which women’s power, body, will, and bonds are celebrated, it seems natural that the Goddess would reemerge as symbol of the newfound beauty, strength, and power of women” (166). Goldstein pretty clearly is committed to discovering and interpreting the feminine element present in the God of the Torah. Christ seems to me to come from a different place, and (after all this), the question that interests me at the moment is how we attempt to create God in our own image. On the one hand, I have certainly encountered Christian leaders who claim that women are lesser beings than men - the whole “He for God; she for God in him” notion. I don’t have to think very long to throw that out as unthinking traditionalism. I hope that leaves me with a transcendent and immanent being, larger than identity by gender while not discounting gender.

What I wonder is how anybody deals with his god as he finds the traditional concepts too small, no longer addressing the reality of life as he lives it. I’m thinking now of science fiction writers like Neil Gaimon in American Gods or Scarlett Thomas in The End of Mr.Y where a god’s power is limited by the number of people who still worship him. How does that address reality as we live it? I don’t believe that the God of the Bible stands outside this conversation. In fact, I’d like to engage some of you in this conversation if you’re at all interested.

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Ghost At Work

CoCo — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:18:05 +0000

Carolyn Hart adds to her collection of favorite heroines with red-headed, impetuous Bailey Ruth Raeburn—a dead—but never down new heroine.

Ghost at Work is the debut of Carolyn’s new heroine, the late Bailey Ruth Raeburn. Carolyn is enjoying writing a series set in her home state of Oklahoma and sees Bailey Ruth as “down home, genuine, and unpretentious—qualities I always associate with Oklahomans. I think every state in the Union has its own fascination and charm and I wanted to celebrate my home state.” And her inspiration for the character of Bailey Ruth, “Actually, there is a famous Oklahoman who represents my idea of Bailey Ruth: Reba McEntire, a gorgeous redhead with great charm. Bailey Ruth likes to sing, too!”

Bailey Ruth Raeburn has always been great at solving mysteries. So why should a little thing like her death change anything? As a freshman member of Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions, Bailey Ruth’s first mission back on Earth finds her back home in Adelaide, Oklahoma. Turns out that Kathleen, the local pastor’s wife, is in a fix. There is a dead man on the rectory back porch and her husband, the Episcopal rector, will be a major suspect unless Kathleen intervenes. With Bailey Ruth’s assistance - sometimes seen and sometimes not - Kathleen sets out to thwart a canny killer who has set a devilish trap for Kathleen and her husband.

Bailey Ruth quickly learns that being a ghost gives her more of an opportunity to do what she does best. Uncharitable people might call it meddling, but Bailey Ruth likes to think of it as using her unique position to help out. And even though Bailey Ruth has a loose interpretation of some of the “rules” set in place by Wiggins, her fussbudget boss, she’ll go to great lengths to help Kathleen save her family.

Rules for Earthly Visitation

Avoid public notice.

No consorting with other departed spirits.

Work behind the scenes without making your presence known.

Become visible only when absolutely essential.

Do not succumb to the temptation to confound those who appear to oppose you.

Make every effort not to alarm earthly creatures.

Information about Heaven is not yours to impart. Simply smile and say, “Time will tell.”

Remember always that you are on the earth, not of the earth…

Carolyn hopes that readers have as much fun reading about Bailey Ruth as she has writing about her. Ghost at Work as an October 21, 2008 release date scheduled.

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Blurred lines

Lazygal — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:47:00 +0000

I've just finished a book, The Acadians: A people's story of exile and triumph. It's an account of la grande derangement, aka the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from Canada by the British. Part of the problem I had with the book is that it purports to be unbiased non-fiction. Yet in so many little ways, it is biased. Words like "tragically" and "unfortunate" fill the text, and let's not

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Childhood Memories

Lazygal — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:06:00 +0000

When I was younger, we used to take long car trips during vacations (my father, currently Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics, was then an actual Professor of Theoretical Physics, so he had pretty much the same vacation schedule as my sister and I). We'd sing songs, nap, and sometimes play car games. One game we played was "oh no". Oh No was a game my father invented. I think. He'd start with a word and define it wrongly - for example, a house was a creature that lived on cheese and said 'squeek'. I'd say "Oh, No, Daddy, you mean mouse". To which he'd respond, "No, a mouse is what you call a bad boyfriend" (meaning, of course, louse). Etc.. I got to insult his definitions, and learned a great deal of vocabulary. Explains a lot about me, doesn't it? Recently, over on TRP, I feel that we've been playing a similar game. Meg wrote about horror writer M.R. James, but wanted to call him P.D. James, because she vaguely knew that there was a P.D. James somewhere. I pointed out that P.D. James was a mystery writer, with Adam Dalgliesh as her main detective (there's also Cordelia Gray, but she hardly counts). Surely I meant Hamish Dalgliesh, the Scottish detective? Oh No, that'd be Hamish MacBeth, M.C. Beaton's detective. Can't wait to see who's next!

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Memory failure

Lazygal — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:48:00 +0000

When people ask about what I've read this summer, and I mention the Summer Reading Challenge, they blanch. I remind them that the vast majority are larger print, lots of white space and under 200 page books. The question that usually follows is: How do you remember everything you read? Short answer: I don't. Long answer: I do, but not in the way you might think. So much of what I read is, well, less than memorable. I usually have to look at the cover, or the summary, to remember what I thought. When it's genre fiction, it's even more difficult. I mean, really, look at the works of Nero Wolfe: I can remember The Golden Spiders just fine, but the differences between Three at Wolfe's Door, Three Doors to Death, Three for the Chair and Three Men Out? Not so much. Children's/YA Literature is much the same. There are so many "trends" (the new Harry Potter... the next "Twilight"... abusive family situation... poor but really talented... Time To Learn An Important Message About Tolerance... you get the picture) and they do tend to run together. That's how I judge a good book: does the plot, the writing and the characters transcend the obvious pre-influences and subgenre? If yes, I'll remember the book far better. As my Challenge winds down (won't get to all of the remaining 29 in the next two weeks, but we'll see how many more I can read!), I'm thinking about those standout books. Look for a post sometime in September touting the best.

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TRP’s Winter Classics Reading Challenge

CoCo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:58:19 +0000

TRP is hosting this fun and rewarding challenge to help kick off our new face lift.

***The challenge is to read three classics during the months of November, December and January***

At the end of January there will be a drawing for all those who complete the challenge. We’re still deciding on a prize. If you would like to join along and read some of those classics that you keep promising that you’ll get to, this is a great time to get started. Plus, there’s something fun about joining with other reader’s on a challenge.

Make your selections and start discussion them now in our forums!

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No Joy in Mudville

CoCo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:57:06 +0000

It’s the birthday of the man who wrote the famous lines: “Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light. And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.” Ernest Thayer, author of the baseball poem “Casey at the Bat,” was born on this day in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1863).

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