Teaser Tuesday 330: The Outsiders

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


Welcome to Banned Books Week! This week I have another frequently challenged book for you, The Outsiders by SE Hinton, which is the September group read for TNBBC at Goodreads. This is one I read a few times back in middle and high school, and my sister and I also watched the movie several times around that time as well. The book is frequently challenged due to its portrayal of gang violence, strong language, family dysfunction and underage smoking and drinking.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman — he looks tough and I don’t — but I guess my own looks aren’t so bad.

(Opening paragraph)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Originally published in 1967

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

Teaser Tuesday 329: The Call of the Wild

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I have another banned book for you this week, The Call of the Wild by Jack London. This book is frequently challenged for its dark tone and bloody violence and, as it is often read by younger teens, for age-inappropriateness. It was also banned in Italy, Yugoslavia, and burned in bonfires in Nazi Germany in the late 1920s and early 30s because it was considered "too radical."

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland.

(Opening paragraph)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Originally published: 1903


Buck, a sturdy crossbreed canine (half St. Bernard, half Shepard), is a dog born to luxury and raised in a sheltered Californian home. But then he is kidnapped and sold to be a sled dog in the harsh and frozen Yukon Territory. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey, proving his unbreakable spirit...

First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

Teaser Tuesday 328: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


In honor of Banned Books Month, I bring you a snippet from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. This book is frequently challenged because it is "racially insensitive," "oppressive," and "perpetuates racism." Parents also often object to the behavior of the children in the book. This scene places Tom and Huck in a graveyard at midnight.

The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard.

Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a shudder:

"It's the devils sure enough."

(Chapter 9)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Originally published in 1876


The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the first of Mark Twain's novels to feature one of the best-loved characters in American fiction, with a critical introduction by John Seelye in Penguin Classics. From the famous episodes of the whitewashed fence and the ordeal in the cave to the trial of Injun Joe, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is redolent of life in the Mississippi River towns in which Twain spent his own youth. A sombre undercurrent flows through the high humour and unabashed nostalgia of the novel, however, for beneath the innocence of childhood lie the inequities of adult reality—base emotions and superstitions, murder and revenge, starvation and slavery. In his illuminating introduction, noted Twain scholar John Seelye considers Twain's impact on American letters and discusses the balance between humorous escapades and serious concern that is found in much of Twain's writing.

Teaser Tuesday 313: The Garden Plot

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week’s teaser is from yet another cozy mystery, The Garden Plot by Marty Wingate, who was the April featured cozy author.

He couldn’t stay away. The thought of what lay beneath the earthen floor had consumed him for months.

(Prologue)

~*~*~*~

Around the edges of the extended ledge, she could see the ground far below—it shifted slightly and she felt dizzy. She leaned back in.


(Chapter 8)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: The Potting Shed #1

In an entirely appealing mystery debut, Marty Wingate introduces readers to a curious Texas ex-pat whose English gardening expertise on occasion leads her to unearth murderous goings-on.


Pru Parke always dreamed of living in England. And after the Dallas native follows an impulse and moves to London, she can’t imagine ever leaving—though she has yet to find a plum position as a head gardener. Now, as the sublet on her flat nears its end, the threat of forced departure looms. Determined to stay in her beloved adopted country, Pru takes small, private gardening jobs throughout the city.

On one such gig in Chelsea, she makes an extraordinary find. Digging in the soil of a potting shed, Pru uncovers an ancient Roman mosaic. But enthusiasm over her discovery is soon dampened when, two days later, she finds in the same spot a man’s bludgeoned corpse. As the London police swarm her worksite, ever inquisitive Pru can’t quite manage to distance herself from the investigation—much to the dismay of stern Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse. It seems that, much as he tries, even handsome DCI Pearse can’t keep Pru safe from a brutal killer who thinks she’s already dug up too much.

Teaser Tuesday 311: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


My teaser for this week comes from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, an April group read. This book was heavily criticized when it was originally published for being “course” and “brutal.” Her sister, Charlotte, especially believed the subject matter to be inappropriate. It was a bit emotional in some sections, but overall I loved it!

In attempting to disengage himself, his foot slipped, and down he tumbled—but not to the earth—the tree still kept him suspended. There was a silent struggle, and then a piercing shriek—but, in an instant, I had dropped my gun on the grass, and caught the little fellow in my arms.


(Chapter 2: An Interview)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion, and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious “tenant” of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father’s influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her.

On its first publication in 1848, Anne Bronte’s second novel was criticized for being “course” and “brutal”. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defense of women’s rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Bronte’s style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered “an entire mistake”, has earned Anne a position in English literature in her own right, not just as the youngest member of the Bronte family.

Teaser Tuesday 305: Maisie Dobbs

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week’s teaser comes from the opening of Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, the March featured cozy author. This is an historical mystery, set before, during and following WWI. I enjoyed it, but definitely not what I expected. There were a couple of chapters that were so heart-wrenching, I was glad not to be reading them at work or on the bus. Warning: You may need a tissue or two.

Even if she hadn’t been the last person to walk through the turnstile at Warren Station, Jack Barker would have noticed the tall, slender woman in the navy blue, thigh-length jacket with a matching pleated skirt short enough to reveal a well-turned ankle. She had what his old mother would have called “bearing.” A way of walking, with her shoulders back and head held high, as she pulled on her black gloves while managing to hold on to a somewhat battered black document case.

(Opening, Chapter One)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: Maisie Dobbs #1

The daughter of a struggling greengrocer, Maisie Dobbs was only thirteen when she was sent to work as a maid for wealthy London aristocrats. But being bright and thoughtful beyond her years, Maisie studies her way to Cambridge, then serves as a nurse on the Front during the Great War. Now, it’s the spring of 1929, nearly ten years after the Armistice and Maisie has just opened up her own detective agency. Her first assignment, a seemingly open-and-shut infidelity case, will reveal a much deeper, darker mystery, forcing Maisie to revisit the horrors of the war and the ghost she left behind. Refreshing, absorbing, and beautifully rendered, Maisie Dobbs marks the beginning of an incredible new series.

Teaser Tuesday 303: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am teasing from a work of fiction by Helen Simonson, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, which was a February group read. Took me a while to get through this one, but the writing is beautiful.

It surprised him that his grief was sharper than in the past few days. He had forgotten that grief does not decline in a straight line or along a slow curve like a graph in a child’s math book. Instead, it was almost as if his body contained a big pile of garden rubbish full of both heavy lumps of dirt and of sharp thorny brush that would stab him when he least expected it.

(Chapter 3)

ABOUT THE BOOK:



From the 2011 Random House Trade Paperback edition:

In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But, then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But, village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

Teaser Tuesday 284: The Eyre Affair

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week’s teaser is from Jasper Fforde's novel The Eyre Affair. It's difficult to slot this quirky book into any one particular genre. It's part fantasy, part mystery and humorous as well. I look forward to reading more in this series!

With my last shot I hit his offside front tire and Acheron finally lost control. The car hit a parked Studebaker and turned over, bounced along on its roof and finally teetered to a stop barely three feet from where I stood. It rocked unsteadily for a moment and then was still, the water from the radiator mixing with the petrol that leaked onto the road.

(Chapter 5)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Series: Thursday Next #1


Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide.

Teaser Tuesday 256: The Prince and the Pauper

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Jenn of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week's teaser comes from a classic, The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, which I recently finished for a Goodreads group read.

At night Tom reached home so wet and tired and hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother to observe his forlorn condition and not be moved—after their fashion; wherefore they gave him a cuffing at once and sent him to bed. For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing and fighting going on in the building, kept him awake; but at last his thoughts drifted away so far, romantic lands, and he fell asleep in the company of jeweled and gilded princelings who lived in vast palaces, and had servants salaaming before them or flying to execute their orders. And then, as usual, he dreamed that he was a princeling himself.

(Chapter two)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Tom Canty and Edward Tudor could have been identical twins. Their birthdays match, their faces match, but there the likeness stops. For Edward is a prince, heir to King Henry VIII, whilst Tom is a miserable pauper. But when fate intervenes, Edward is thrown out of the palace in rags, leaving ignorant Tom to play the part of a royal prince. Even those who have never read the novel will be familiar with Twain's classic tale of mistaken identity: at once an adventure story and a fantasy of timeless appeal.

Teaser Tuesday 252: A Week in Winter

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am sharing a bit of A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy, who died in 2012, shortly after finishing this book.

Stoneybridge was a paradise for children during the summer, but summer in the west of Ireland was short, and most of the time it was wet and wild and lonely on the Atlantic coast. Still, there were caves to explore, cliffs to climb, birds’ nests to discover, and wild sheep with great curly horns to investigate. And then there was Stone House. Chicky loved to play in its huge overgrown garden. Sometimes the Miss Sheedys, three sisters who owned the house and were ancient, let her play at dressing up in their old clothes.

(Opening chapter)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Stone house is finally ready to welcome its first guests to the big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms. Laugh and cry with this unlikely group as they share their secrets and — maybe — even see some of their dreams come true. Full of Maeve’s trademark warmth and humor, once again she embraces us with her grand storytelling.

Teaser Tuesday 233: Emma

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



I have been reading Emma by Jane Austen for what seems like an eternity, but is in fact only a week. This is a revisit for a group read and, alas, I cannot say I am enjoying it any more this round than I did the first. Definitely not my favorite Austen, though I know many prefer it to her other works. Here's a snippet from where I've left off this Monday night:

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made—when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.

(Vol. 2, Ch 11)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work.

Teaser Tuesday 222: The Swiss Family Robinson

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



This week's teaser comes from another classic group read, The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss. Mixed feelings on this one so far. Some may remember the 1960 Disney film based on the novel.

For many days we had been tempest-tossed. Six times had the darkness closed over a wild and terrific scene, and returning light as often brought only renewed distress, for the raging storm increased in fury until on the seventh day all hope was lost.

(Opening paragraph)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The sea has been in a violent rage for many days. As the winds howled and the seas churned and boiled, the ship rolled and heaved in the gigantic waves. The crew and passengers grew more and more terrified. Suddenly--as if from the blow of a mighty fist--the ship broke apart....

All were lost. All but a pastor, his wife, and four sons: the Swiss Family Robinson.

Shipwrecked! Abandoned on a deserted tropical island with little more than a few simple tools--and each other--the family must use its intelligence, courage, ingenuity, and humor to survive. And each day brings yet another adventure...and danger.

Teaser Tuesday 220: East of Eden

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



I am currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck for a classics group read. I made good progress last week, but did not get to spend much time reading over the weekend. Good book so far, and not a single "just then" in sight (see yesterday's rant).

Her voice was dead and metallic. "I don't give a damn what you believe. I'm going."

(Chapter 17)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the inexplicability of love; and the murderous consequences of love’s absence.

Teaser Tuesday 201: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


This week I am reading a short classic for a Goodreads group read: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Here's a snippet from somewhere in the middle:

We had risen from our rocks and were turning to go home, having abandoned the hopeless chase. The moon was low upon the right, and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood against the lower curve of its silver disc. There, outlined as black as an ebony statue on that shining background, I saw the figure of a man upon the tor.

(Chapter 9)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Perhaps the most popular of all Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles combines the traditional detective tale with elements of horror. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the wild Devon moorland with the footprints of a giant hound nearby, the blame is placed on a family curse-and it is up to Holmes and Watson to solve the mystery of the legend. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural and good against evil, as Sherlock Holmes tries to defeat a foe almost his equal.

Teaser Tuesday 191: Oliver Twist

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!

I started Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens Sunday night for a classics group read. Am only about a quarter of the way into it right now, but so it's pretty good. Though I am familiar with the story, I have never read the novel, and was a bit surprised by how long it actually is (my copy is just over 500 pages). Here is a teaser from near the beginning of the book.

They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class, as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along.

(Chapter 5)

ABOUT THE BOOK:

First published in 1837.

The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens's tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters—the arch-villain Fagin, the Artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

Teaser Tuesday 188: Life of Pi

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!



I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel over the weekend for a group read at Goodreads. I was eager to read this one and it did not disappoint. Now I am interested in seeing the movie to see how it compares. My teaser comes from the opening of part two, a third of the way into the book. It is not a spoiler since we know going in that this is the story of a castaway.

The ship sank. It made a sound like a monstrous metallic burp. Things bubbled at the surface and then vanished. Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart. From the lifeboat I saw something in the water.

(Chapter 37)

BACK COVER BLURB:

Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas, the ship sinks—and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi’s fear, knowledge and cunning keep him alive until they do?

Teaser Tuesday 185: Madame Bovary

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I am currently halfway through Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, the August selection for a Goodreads classics group. Very readable writing style, and I am liking it so far.

After the pain of this disappointment had gone, her heart stood empty once more; and then the series of identical days began all over again. (Pg 70)

~*~*~*~*~

"What's more delightful than an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book, listening to the wind beating against the windows . . . I’m absolutely removed from the world at such times. . . .The hours go by without my knowing it." (Pg 94)

BACK COVER BLURB:

Perhaps no book in the history of the novel has been more read and praised by critics than this story of Emma Bovary, a provincial French woman who could not bear the discrepancy between her romantic dreams and the dull routine of her daily life and marriage to a middle-class country doctor. For Flaubert, however, the actual writing was as important as the story he had to tell, and he spent five years crafting the novel, laboring over each word and phrase. This attention to detail and accuracy is reflected in the revelation of the unconscious mind at work as Madame Bovary attempts to impose on her humdrum life the substance of the dreams that ultimately bring about her dissolution. (Originally published in 1857)

Teaser Tuesday 152: The Hobbit

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


I am about to begin a reread of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien as a TNBBC November group read, and in anticipation of the upcoming movie (the first of three) opening December 14. It's been ages since I read this, so I am looking forward to reliving the adventure. Here is the opening paragraph.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

 




ABOUT THE BOOK

Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who wanted to be left alone in quiet comfort. But the wizard Gandalf came along with a band of homeless dwarves. Soon Bilbo was drawn into their quest, facing evil orcs, savage wolves, giant spiders, and worse unknown dangers. Finally, it was Bilbo-alone and unaided-who had to confront the great dragon Smaug, the terror of an entire countryside . . .

This stirring adventure fantasy begins the tale of the hobbits that was continued by J.R.R. Tolkien in his bestselling epic The Lord of the Rings.

Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.

Teaser Tuesday 115: A Tale of Two Cities

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


Have just begun A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, one of the January group reads for The Next Best Book Club at GoodReads. As I am not too far into it as yet, my teaser comes from very near the beginning. It's actually three sentences, but I love how this descriptive passage set the scene and sent a shiver down my spine.

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hills like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

(pg 7)

ABOUT THE BOOK
A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens' greatest historical novel, traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dickens based his historical detail on Carlyle's great work—The French Revolution—and also on his own observations and investigations during numerous visits to Paris.

"The best story I have written,'' was Dickens' own verdict on A Tale of Two Cities, and the reader is unlikely to disagree with this judgement of a story which combines historical fact with the author's unsurpassed genius for poignant tales of human suffering, self-sacrifice, and redemption.