Category: Book Review

Teaser Tuesday: Atonement

Where has the week gone? I spent most of the week since last Tuesday binge watching House of Cards, Parks and Recreation, and Supernatural on Netflix doing profitable things like housework and talking to my parents and cleaning up my home computer.

I also spent some time reading, so once again the wheel of time has landed on:

Teaser TuesdayJust in case you don’t know, Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share a few sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*

*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.

This week I’m reading Atonement by Ian McEwan. Although I’ve had this book for over a year, this is my first attempt at reading it. One motivator to finish my current at-home TBR is my personal vow to avoid the library until I’ve finished the books already taking up space.

I use the Truly Random Number Generator to pick the page number for my Teaser Tuesday post; today we go to page 186.

The men came a couple of steps closer and raised 
what was in their hands. Shotguns, surely. 

Turner released his safety catch. 
He heard Mace and Nettle do the same. 

"Easy," he murmured.

Atonement Cover

In Retrospect

I finished reading 1916: The Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan and gave it four stars. It would have been five, but the first 25 pages or so were so uncompelling that I almost gave it up. Once I made it to page 30 or so, things picked up and I finished it easily, especially the last fifty pages or so.

What have you been reading?

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Review: The Art of Asking

I don’t know why I started following Amanda Palmer on Twitter.

I’d never heard her music.

I’d never seen her show.

I’d never read her name in the news.

I only knew she was the wife of Neil Gaiman.

Amanda Palmer HuffPo
When I saw she had written a book, I thought “yeah, I’ll add that to the list and read it someday.” Then, it started to take over my Twitter feed. One Saturday I decided to see if my small-town library even had a copy; they did, and it was available. I tweeted about it, and much to my surprise, Amanda Palmer herself retweeted me. Twice:

Amanda Palmer Retweeted Me

I used her book for my second-ever Teaser Tuesday and almost couldn’t put it down:

Here's the thing: all of us come from some place 
of wanting to be seen, understood, accepted, 
connected.
 
Every single one of us wants to be believed.

Artists are often just . . . louder about it.

Art of Asking is also the first book in a long time I received flak over. Apparently, the cover “isn’t appropriate.” Really, people? Ulysses and Lolita were fine, but AoA needs to be hidden away? Perhaps you forgot the phrase

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

And what a book it is. Amanda recounts her early artistic career as a Living Statue, the growing pains of the Dresden Dolls, her falling-into-love with Neil Gaiman, the backlash of a successful Kickstarter campaign, her current tour, and many personal relationships. Through it all she delves into the basic human need to be seen and understood without being judged, to ask without fearing the possible – inevitable? – rejection, to trust unconditionally.

Amanda lets us into her world and barew her own fears and faults and foilables. She does not claim perfection, far from it. What she offers is light.

A flashlight on a dark path, keeping others from stumbling.

A spotlight on an exit ramp, showing the way.

Track lighting on fine art, highlighting beauty and grace we might have missed.

The best books reach inside and change the very essence of our being. They change how we see ourselves, those around us, and the world we live in. They are unavoidable catalysts for change in a static world. In my last twenty-nine years, only three authors spoke to me in such a way:

J.R.R. Tolkein

C.S. Lewis

Dante Alighieri

Now the Triumverate becomes a Tetrarchy:

Amanda Palmer has arrived.

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑