Her Book Self

Well, my name really is Angie and I spend chunks of my life reading and reviewing all sorts of books. As a result, I get very little sleep and occasionally wonder how productive I would be if I got more. But then I toss aside the thought immediately. Life’s too short to sleep too much and miss out on all these wonderful stories. I have a soft spot for YA, urban fantasy, science fiction, and mysteries. In real life I'm married to an audiophile/photographer who (thankfully) is no stranger to obsessive hobbies. I'm also Mom to two made-of-awesome squirts—a 6-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. I work as an editor for an educational publisher. I love my job and spend most of my time researching and writing about people and cultures from around the world. I got my masters in English literature and am particularly partial to the Victorian period. I spent a few years teaching freshman composition at my local university and, even though I love being an editor, I still miss teaching every day.

You don’t pull any punches, do you, Lisa? Honestly, the other four blogs are go-to blogs for me for very different reasons and it’s impossible to pick one overall favorite. Sorry! It may sound like a copout but it’s true. Presenting Lenore conducts awesome interviews that I always look forward to. Her questions pack a punch. Steph Su Reads is just excellently written and her final say on a book review can push me over into having to read a book right now. Forever Young Adult is the freaking bee’s knees and I go there to laugh my head off and snark the day away. And Pure Imagination is just frankly a happy place to be and we share a taste for dystopia and urban fantasy. When we first saw the shortlist, the five of us joked about how that guest list right there would make for the best slumber party EVER. And it really would.

Bibliophilia on display.

I’m gonna have to go with A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb for this one. I first read that one over four years ago and rarely, if ever, encountered anyone else who had read it. I loved it so much, though. Found myself thinking about favorite scenes and passages all the time. It stuck with me and I really felt it deserved a wider readership. So I featured it in a Retro Friday post a few months ago and was absolutely tickled with the response, both from people who had read it and also wanted someone else to talk about it with and from people who had never heard of it but wanted to check it out right away. And they did! And they loved it, too. And they reviewed it on their blogs! And it was just exactly what I hoped to accomplish with Retro Fridays. 

I have occasionally put down a book because I was not enjoying it and was pretty sure it was me and not the book, my mood negatively affecting my ability to enjoy it. I’ve then picked it up later, in a better frame of mind, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I haven’t often picked up a beloved book and found it lacking the second (or third or fourth) time around. Thank goodness. I tend to give my whole heart to a book and not in pieces.

I’ve loved all the author interviews I’ve had the opportunity to participate in on my blog. I interviewed Sarah Rees Brennan a few months ago and was really struck by her response to my question about the importance of creating real, sometimes unbearably painful family relationships in her books. She talked about how she loves a good romance as much as the next person, but that it’s interesting that family didn’t play as large a role as you might expect in young adult novels featuring teenagers coming to terms with their own independence in the context of the people they’re attached to for life. Sarah said she wanted to write about how families come together in times of trauma and she closed with a line that has stuck with me, “There are all kinds of love stories to be told.”

Sometimes it’s the only thing that saves me, making a radical jump in genres. I’ll finish an absolute stunner of a book and have the worst time coming out of the world! It’s then that I either pull out an old favorite or immerse myself in something completely and utterly different. The oddest pair of books I’ve read back to back is definitely The Book Thief by Markus Zusak followed up by Laura Weiss’ Such a Pretty Girl. I was emotionally wrung out upon finishing the superb The Book Thief and honestly didn’t know where to turn after that. I ended up turning to a book I would otherwise probably never have picked up because it dealt heavily with child abuse. But something about the raw state of mind I was in after finishing The Book Thief made me respond to a wonderful review I read of Such a Pretty Girl. I went and checked it out from the library that evening and fell completely and effortlessly in love. They’re both important novels in such very different ways.

Definitely. I think the most mutually enjoyable reading aloud experience we’ve had together was our stint with the Harry Potter series. They just have a great cast of characters and enough action and charm to keep two people grinning at each other continuously. It certainly gave me a chance to polish my range of character voices so that I was ready to start over again with my son. He says he always knows who’s talking before it actually says it in the text because he recognizes the voice. This thing makes me incredibly happy.

Other favorites have been Sharon Shinn’s Twelve Houses series and Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief books. Both are distinguished by casts of engaging and awesome characters, extremely well fleshed out worlds, and not a little humor and derring-do.

Unquestionably. The thing is—I can get into the whole Team Gale/Team Peeta debate with as much fervor as the next reader. I get a kick out of trading well-meaning barbs back and forth on twitter and crossing my fingers for the outcome I want for months on end. But the reason I changed the button on my blog upon finishing Mockingjay was quite simple. The whole team thing was fun while it lasted. But it wasn’t the point of the series. And, in Mockinjay, Ms. Collins made that point so beautifully and unabashedly that I could have stood up an applauded. It was always about Katniss. Thus the change.

Ooh. Good guesses! Wrong on both counts, but I do love the idea of Pip for a boy. Great Expectations was my first Dickens novel and I have always loved it. Will is actually named for a couple of characters and one author. Will Stanton from The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper, Will Ladislaw from George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and the Bard himself. Now he hasn’t read the first two yet, but he has had some experience with Shakespeare. A friend asked him the other day who he was named after and he said, “Shakespeare.” The friend looked at him blankly and Will said, “You know, the playwright. Twelfth Night? Taming of the Shrew?” An even blanker look from said friend. That’s my boy.

My little girl is actually named after a character in a much more recent novel—How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. I read that gorgeous book in a single day and woke up the next day and read it all over again. The Piper in that book is a bright light amid the darkness and it is impossible not to love her. I loved her, I loved the name, and I feel the same way about my Piper.

I joined GoodReads right about the same time as I started blogging. My husband was the instigator in both cases. He knew I would love the cataloguing and socializing aspect of GoodReads and he knew, even before I did, how quickly I would take to blogging. I’ve met so many other readers through GoodReads, many who don’t blog or follow them, and so I’m grateful for that additional venue in which I am privileged to interact with such interesting, smart people. In a couple of particularly special cases, I’ve met people who live not so far from me at all and we’ve been able to become friends in real life as well as online.

I discovered twitter through my husband as well. He is my internet guru. And I was quickly and happily engulfed in the waves of witty tweets. I love being able to drop in and out as my schedule demands and I love the lovely links and pithy comments people send out into the twittersphere. They often make my day and point me to posts, sites, and articles I might never otherwise have found.

I have a complicated relationship with Facebook and I think we’ll just leave it at that.

You can easily find me through the social media icons on the right hand sidebar on my blog just under the Search field.

Thanks so much for having me, Lisa. I had a blast!

And be sure to check out Angieville for the flip side of this interview swap where Angie interviews me!

September 13-17 is Book Blogger Appreciation Week!  If you're a fellow Book Blogger, I hope you feel appreciated!  Though I heard about BBAW back in May, I didn't choose to nominate Her Book Self for any of the awards.  In hindsight, I suppose it would have been fun to throw my hat in the ring for Best New Blog, but at that time I really didn't know if I would enjoy maintaining this blog and I didn't know if anyone would ever actually read this blog.  So needless to say, I chose not to enter.  But fear not, as a Cubs fan, I have plenty of practice in saying, "There's always next year!"  I still want to recognize this week though and take part in some of the festivities!  Stay tuned for an interview with a fellow book blogger, another blog award, and of course now would be a great time for you to peruse my blogroll and stop over to show some love for all the other awesome book bloggers out there!

This year's BBAW logo and theme: A Treasure Chest of Infinite Books and Infinite Blogs

Book: A Cup of Jo by Sandra Balzo

Series: Maggy Thorsen Mysteries

Book Order: Uncommon Grounds* (1), Grounds For Murder (2), Bean There, Done That (3), Brewed, Crude and Tattooed (4), From the Grounds Up (5), A Cup of Jo* (6)
* indicates a book I have read

Sandra Balzo brews up a great mystery in A Cup of Jo the latest in her Maggy Thorsen series. When Maggy orders a huge inflatable coffee cup emblazoned with the Uncommon Grounds logo to promote her coffee shop, it seems like a great idea... until a body is found inside the giant decoration.

With motives all around and suspects close to heart, it's up to Maggy to sort through clues while trying to maintain a booming coffee business. Trouble has a knack for following Maggy, though, and the twists and turns in this mystery are as abundant as the quirky characters. Balzo fills her Wisconsin town with a great supporting cast of friends and fiends ensuring that Maggy's tale is heartwarming, hilarious, and perfectly puzzling.

The challenge is on for the reader to solve the murder alongside Maggy Thorsen. Armchair detectives everywhere will definitely want to cozy up with A Cup of Jo.

This is another series that I've been reading rather out of order.  I picked up A Cup of Jo not realizing how many books I had skipped in the series, but it was still a great story and I appreciated that Balzo's writing seemed more sophisticated farther along in the series.  I'm sure I'll fill in the gaps with the middle books someday, but each story can easily be appreciated as a standalone tale too.

Book: Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman

Series: Antsy Bonano Novels

Book Order: The Schwa Was Here*  (1), Antsy Does Time* (2) 
* indicates a book I have read

Every once in a while a book is so good that I don't want to read it's sequel.  Something in me insists that the book shouldn't even have a sequel because the first one was so enjoyable that I can't fathom another book following it.  But every once in a while, I end up very glad that certain books do have sequels, because every once in a while book two is undoubtedly good enough to share a shelf with its predecessor.  Such was the case with Neal Shusterman's novel Antsy Does Time, the sequel to The Schwa Was Here.  

Anthony "Antsy" Bonano is a witty, wisecracking, sarcastic, street smart, New York neighborhood kid.  As narrator of The Schwa Was Here, Antsy introduced readers to the functionally invisible Calvin Schwa in a story that was as sweetly endearing as it was hilarious.  In the sequel, Antsy is back and makes a new friend, Gunnar Umlaut.  When Gunnar reveals that he only has six months to live, Antsy responds with a heartfelt gesture and donates one month of his life to Gunnar - complete with a signed contract.  The small act of goodwill turns out to have huge repercussions, though, and soon Antsy (the newly appointed "Master of Time") is in way over his head.

I can't really pick which of these two Shusterman novels I like better, but for those that enjoyed The Schwa Was Here, don't hesitate to dive into Antsy Does Time.  Shusterman does a terrific job capturing the voice of a teenage narrator.  Where the first book introduced Antsy, this book has him growing up a bit and it was great to watch his character develop further and see the seriousness behind his sarcasm. 

Do you ever put off reading books based on your expectations of them?  Has a book ever really surprised you by being way better (or way worse) than you predicted?

I thought this an appropriate quote for Series in September.   Truthfully, I think the very best sequels are those which extend and expand their companion works rather than imitating them, but I also find Marquis's sentiment quite amusing.  Are there sequels you've read where you felt that the author was pretty much just imitating him/herself?

Book: White Night by Jim Butcher

Series:The Dresden Files

Book Order: Storm Front* (1), Fool Moon* (2), Grave Peril* (3), Summer Knight* (4), Death Masks* (5), Blood Rites* (6), Dead Beat* (7), Proven Guilty* (8), White Night*  (9), Small Favor (10), Turn Coat (11), Changes (12),  Plus assorted short stories
* indicates a book I have read

Harry Dresden has the honor of being the only wizard listed in the Chicago phone book, and in White Night he's back for another suspenseful adventure.  The chivalrous sorcerer can't stand seeing a lady in trouble so when a string of apparent suicides among a group of female magic practitioners comes to his attention, Harry decides to look deeper at the events.  He definitely doesn't like what he sees when all evidence starts to point to someone close to him as the prime suspect.

As a Chicagoan, I'm particularly vulnerable to loving this series.  Jim Butcher effortlessly captures the heart and soul of The Windy City and readers familiar with the locale will delight in witnessing Harry accurately refer to, visit, and wreak havoc across their favorite sites.  Of course, even those who have never been to Chicago can appreciate visiting the city through Harry's eyes and the humor, suspense, and adventure woven through Butcher's writing are a treat to all readers.

The books in The Dresden Files series are probably best when read in order.  There are many references to previous events in this novel - and many jokes based on those events - and the complex relationships of the characters can't adequately be explained in summary style.  However, I really feel this is a series that has improved with almost every book.  Storm Front, the first in the series, was a great read when I first encountered it, but looking at how far the series has come, it's arguably the weakest novel of the group.  Dead Beat, book seven, might be my favorite in the string, but White Night was an excellent work and even after nine Dresden novels, my appetite for Jim Butcher's Windy City wizard is still eager for more. 

So now I'm wondering, what do you think about reading books that are set in the city/town/area where you live or work?  Any examples of an author or book that did a great job capturing the spirit of the place you call home?

Book: Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes

Series: The Walsh Sisters

Book Order: Watermelon (1), Rachel's Holiday (2), Angels* (3), Anybody Out There?* (4)   

* indicates a book I have read

Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes begins with an amnesia plot in which Anna Walsh - one of the Walsh sisters whose adventures are chronicled in other books by Keyes - awakens in her family's home in Ireland with scattered pieces of her life in place. Rather than a cliche novel focused on Anna regaining her memory, a sentimental story unfolds as Anna must move back to New York and put her life back together piece by piece.

This is the third book I've read by Keyes and so far it is my favorite. The writing was emotional without being overly sappy and the secondary characters peppered the plot with humor and kept a lighthearted tone to a serious story. Technically, this is the fourth entry in Keyes's series about the Walsh sisters, but it is also an excellent stand-alone novel.

I like that this series is not exactly a series.  Each book tells its own story but all of them are connected by the relationship of the Walsh sisters, with every book focusing primarily on just one sister.  While most of the characters appear in multiple books, there's no real need to read all the books to understand or appreciate the others, and there's also no need to read them all in order.  Do you read a series starting with book one or do you occasionally skip around?