Hello Winter Readers!

This month we’re reading Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini, a beautiful and inspiring memoir of food, depression, marriage, and family that took us on a journey from the dinner table in her childhood home in Connecticut all the way to the open air markets in sun-drenched Italy.  We are so excited to have Paula here in real time answering any questions you might have on Monday, February 22, at 5 pm PST (which is my time zone- she lives in Italy but will be in Washington, DC, on the day of our discussion).  If you’ve read Keeping the Feast, or are curious about it, please mark your calendars and join us as we discuss the book with Paula!

Here is a synopsis of the book, followed by a few discussion questions:

Keeping the Feast is a story of love, trauma, and the personal and marital healing that can come from a beautiful place and its simple traditions. It’s a memoir about what happens when tragedy and its psychological aftershocks strike a previously happy marriage and a couple must stubbornly fight to find its bearings. Most significantly, it is a book about the power of one of the most fundamental rituals – the daily sharing of food around a family table. Food — the growing, shopping, preparing, cooking, eating, talking, sharing and memory of it — becomes the symbol of a family’s innate desire to survive, to accept and even celebrate what falls its way.

SO READERS- let’s get the discussion started! These are just a few questions to get you thinking- you don’t have to answer them all. Please feel free to add your own questions, and respond to each others answers, too.

1. What was your overall view of the book?  Did you enjoy it?  Was it what you expected?

2.  Were there parts of this book that were difficult to read?

3.  What aspect of the book did you enjoy most?

4.  John and Paula’s marriage was brand new when tragedy struck.  It might have been easier to leave than stay, yet they got through it.  Would you have had the strength to stay, given the circumstances?

5.  What role do you think Rome and rituals played in their recovery?

6.  What role does food play in your family?  Do you live to eat or eat to live?

7.  While reading Keeping the Feast, did you ever get frustrated with Paula?  With John?

8.  Paula had firsthand experience with depression through her relationship with her mother before it overtook her husband.  Were you surprised that she handled her husband’s bouts with depression the way she did, given her history?

We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Keeping the Feast. Thanks for reading along with us.  And don’t forget to join us on February 22nd for our discussion with Paula!

What books, magazines, short stories, and articles are you reading in December?

It is not necessary to fill in your e-mail address or website info in the reply area.

Below are the discussion questions for the Book Chat (September 28 and October 1 from 6 pm to 7 pm).

1. When was the last time you read Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451″?

2. Can you imagine a society without books or libraries?

3. Ray Bradbury wrote “Fahrenheit 451″ in 1953; to what extent has his prophecy come true today?

4. What do you think happened to the children in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451″?

5. Why did Montag start reading and hiding books in his house?

6. If you had to memorize a single book, which book would you choose?

7. If you had to burn a single book, which book would you choose?

8. If you had to rename “Fahrenheit 451″, what would you name it?

Just a quick message to say thank you to the crew and authors of Phoenix Rising Promotions for another successful chat day! Also, thank you to the participating readers and Bo Perkins our AR editor, wearing her PRP chat host hat!

If you missed it, and would like to join in the fun next time, check here for our AR future chat dates and other events for your diary. This page will be frequently updated, so do come back to check it out regularly.

For booking queries, please contact Sassy dot Brit at gmail dot com 

Sassy

Alternative-Read.com: The “Inside Story” by Sassy Brit and her Gang!
~http://www.twibes.com/group/READERSandREVIEWERS~Chat and Promo Group~WHAT’S ON YOUR DESK WEDNESDAY? Book Blog Meme!~We are actively seeking staff!~FaceBook~LibraryThing~AmazonUK~GoodReads~
Technorati Categories:Book Review, FREE Books, Competition, Blog,Media, Press Release, Author,Podcast, Interview,Book News, Reviews,Reviewers, WitchGiggles, Aris, Lucille Perkins Robinson, Devlin O’Neill, Clayton Bye,Angelika Devlyn, Michael,Ella Blackhart, Bo Perkins,Giveaway,Yahoo Group, Guest Blog, Publisher, Newsletter, Stumbleupon, MySpace, Promo, alternative-read.com

Click here to join:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/An_Alternative_Read/

Free books when you join! Details at the bottom of this post.

This is your friendly AR Editor in disguise today. I am here representing Phoenix Rising Promotions, a fabulous company that works hard so authors have more time to write.

If you have any questions about PRP, I am the person to ask.
I hope you enjoy our party.

Bo Perkins

Monthly All Day Chats

See below for the free ebooks you get for joining our Alternative-Readers Yahoo Group.

FOR FURTHER GROUP BOOK PARTY CHATS WITH ALTERNATIVE-READ.COM PLEASE CONTACT:

Sassy dot Brit @ gmail dot com

Free eBooks when you join the AR Yahoo group!

Degrees of Sickness by Sharon Maria Bidwell,Kept by Zoe Winters,
The Scythian Stone by Jon F. Baxley
The Shaman and the Rose by William P. Haynes
will be yours free to keep upon joining our Yahoo group!

Degrees of Sickness by Sharon Maria Bidwell, is not available anywhere else than our Alternative-Read Yahoo group!

Join our Alternative-Read Yahoo Group Book Pomotions & Chat Group
Click to join An_Alternative_Read

I just got a comment from a loving fan who commented on the About section of my blog.  Here’s what it said:

“read a book”

So I went ahead and emailed that person and here’s how I responded:

Subject: don’t judge a book…

…by its cover. 
 
I have a blog called DVR Diva.  You made a comment to me to read a book.  I read lots of books.  If you actually read my blog instead of just the “About” portion, you would see that I subscribe to a great service called paperspine that allows me to rent books every month instead of buying them — I just read a book yesterday, in fact.  A whole book.  300+ pages.  In one very long sitting.
 
Just thought you’d like to know.

I love my fans.

First things first: Last week’s (as in the Sunday before yesterday) New York Times Book Review, which I was just getting to today, had a headline piece that was – surprise surprise – really good. Not only does the book in question (it was about meth, middle america, and the larger implications) actually sound like something I should read instead of some other book, but the review itself wasn’t terrible, putrid, or vomit-inducing-ly unoriginal. I won’t go into some sort of hagiographic laudation about it, but it was good and that’s unusual. So there.

Second things second: I was watching Stripes earlier today, which came on right after Michael J. Fox’s The Story of My Success (a 1980’s movie I’d never seen but found particularly good, though the last five minutes felt rushed), and I finally identified something that has bothered me ever since I first saw the movie some years ago in the throes of undignified adolescence (as opposed to my current dignified adolescence): the last 30 minutes of the movie suck.

Seriously, they’re awful. The first 90 minutes are great. They’re fun, enjoyable, hilarious, riotous, and they keep you interested, you never go astray. I’d even say it’s up there in the canon for “Best First 90 Minutes of a Movie.” And then graduation (from boot camp) day comes and they pull it off with some spirited Bill Murray hijinks, and it’s all downhill.

I think the problem is that the concept of the movie is good, but the execution only lasted 90 minutes. Two lazy New Yorkers head to boot camp in 1980 and they’re in for a hell of a ride, albeit a funny, rollicking one, helped along by John candy and a cast of nobodies who perform tremendously well. But they didn’t make the climax the graduation day hijinks, which would have been a lot better. You see, we viewers are only willing to sacrifice reality to a point. Boot camp capers are great, and we revel in them, believe them, crave them, but when you take this horribly inept cast of would-be soldiers and put them in a real situation, with real guns, real enemies, real tanks, we lose interest.

(1) We’d rather not see Billy Murray, Harold Ramis, and John Candy fighting real Russians, no matter how cleverly comedic the encounters are; and (2) Real guns and real Russians actually mean something, whereas boot camp is just another reason to have a good time, so the jokes fall flat – notice, too, the lack of comedic material in the final 30 minutes: there’s just nothing funny available, so nothing funny happens (or at least actually funny things; the two Russian border guards supply some short-term humor, but you can’t expect those sort of 5-10 second filler laughs to sustain a movie).

I think it would have been better to somehow make the graduation day the climax, adding in some extra stuff, mix it up a bit, create more conflict between the Captain and the group. Or perhaps make the “invade a Russian enclave and rescue the group” thing less believable, and more wildly outrageous, so that we don’t mind that it’s Bill Murray and Harold Ramis fighting real Russians with real guns. When you do that, we just laugh and hang on, instead of constantly saying “Really?” I suppose I should take my claim to Ramis himself; he did write the script, after all.

Also, it should be noted that I haven’t curbed the movie watching habit. Two movies today, probably a third later tonight. I’m sure this isn’t good. I mean, movies are great and all, but at what point does it become not-so-good to be watching so many of them? Well, I guess I wouldn’t be saying this if I had been reading ten hours a day, so I should just shut up. In any case, here’s a quote from a book I’m reading that had me in stitches:

“Of course I’ve got one, a man can’t live without a moral code. Mine is that I’m against the burning of witches. Whenever they burn a witch I get all hot under the collar.”

So far, so good.  The customer service is awesome.  It does take about 3 days for the books to get to me, which is hard because once I finish reading one I like to immediately delve into another.  However, they try to cut down on that issue by having you email them when you’ve shipped your last books back and then they send you the next two in your queue.

One thing I found odd: I have 34 books in my queue right now, and they sent me one from the very bottom of my list.  I know it’s a small company, but I wondered if they were out of all of the other books?  I don’t know, but either way it’s still saving me tons of money from buying so many books from either Borders or Amazon (both of which I have cards to, so that should give you an indication of how many books I purchase — I would average $4o per month).

If you have questions about the service, feel free to ask me or look them up at www.paperspine.com.  It’s definitely a cool service and a unique idea.  I hope at some point that they have the ability to recommend books to you based on the ones you’ve already rented.  That helps when you start to run low on ideas of your own.

Typically, I love Janet Evanovich’s depiction of Stephanie Plum and her over-the-top Jersey girl slapstick comedy.  But did I love Finger Lickin’ Fifteen?  NO, I did not.  This was a bad weekend for me!  Between the disappointment of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and the disappointment of Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, I would have been better off crawling into a hole and avoiding all types of entertainment. 

Evanovich has found a formula that keeps her on the top of the Bestseller’s List year after year, but after this assault I won’t be purchasing her books again.  She is milking this cow for all it’s worth and it’s clear that she no longer gives a shit about trying to do anything new and original to keep her devoted audience on its toes.  And that doesn’t seem fair!  The authors who remain innovative and don’t rest on their laurels are the ones I keep coming back to.  Patricia Cornwell lost me years ago as a result of her writing going to pot. 

Too many things were a repeat, making the book predictable.  We’ve already had a man dress in drag (in Four to Score, my favorite of the entire series).  Stephanie blows up cars like she changes her underwear, and it has become obnoxious.  I’m tired of her being such a flake.  Ranger spent the whole book calling her “Babe” and pushing her against walls to make out for a beat before leaving, same as always.  Her and Morelli were on the outs once more, and that was just boring.  Stephanie isn’t meant to be celibate.  But she does need to make a decision between the two and start wrapping up the love triangle storyline.  It is stale to say the least.

All the characters and situations were so utterly predictable that I didn’t laugh out loud even one single time during this entire read; in fact, I found myself rolling my eyes.  Granted, I don’t rely on Evanovich to show us stellar writing ability, but I do expect her to do something other than phone it in.  My suggestion to her is to bring in some new, interesting characters and maybe get Stephanie out of Jersey for at least one book.  In the past, a vibrant new character was introduced in every novel.  There was Lula, the development of Grandma Mazur, Stephanie’s sister and Albert Kloughn, Sally Sweet, Dougie and Mooner, etc.

If you’re reading this, Janet, take a couple of years to develop a storyline.  One that would make me consider actually buying one of your books again.  Because this time, you failed me and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks so.

So hopefully you have read enough of my posts to know that I’m not an idiot.  Quite the opposite, actually, as I like to consider myself a literate individual.  As such, I enjoy reading.  I read a ton of books!  However, I have a few problems in this arena.  Most books I buy through Amazon, after reading a lot of reviews to find out if I think each title is worth my while and my dime.  In the past, I used the library.  But not only do I feel like library books are germ central, it can be really tough to find books that you want AND it can’t be done remotely.

To make a long story short, I have discovered the Netflix of books: www.paperspine.com.  This is an awesome way to rent all those books you’ve been wanting to read but are unwilling to pay $10-15 to buy, plus everything can be done from your computer.  I signed up for the program that’s $10 a month, you get 2 books at a time, and everything ships for free.  My first book in the queue is My Sister’s Keeper because I’ve heard so many good things about it.  The ONLY problem that I have with this so far is that they don’t carry any hardbacks.  Therefore, anything new that has come out only in hardback is not readily available.  However, I’m thrilled to have found the site and I’ll keep you posted on the service and book quality.

I think this is a safe assessment (and perhaps a generous one) about The New York Times Sunday Book Review: It is getting to the point where the writing is indistinguishable from piece to piece; it would not surprise me if one guy/girl wrote all of them under different pseudonyms.

A formula has revealed itself after many weeks of reading the Sunday Edition of the Times after slipping it from its blue cellophane wrapper (which, btw, is much more durable than the wrapper used by The Arizona Republic; but then again, one newspaper claims to be the most popular in the world, and the other is looking more and more like a meagerly fed child who is withering away, becoming more and more emaciated as the seasons progress). The formula for NYTimes book-chat/literary criticism can be rendered thusly:

40% of review piece is devoted to awkward summarization of the book.

20% of review piece is devoted to obligatory criticism of the book, usually in the form of “If there is anything unsatisfying about this “positive adjective” and “positive adjective” book, it is…”

40% of review piece is devoted to a short discussion of something the reviewer found compelling/interesting/noteworthy/etc.: “The book raises practical questions”; “But for all the excitement, we never lose sight of the mourning”; “All this is reported with dispassionate, almost surgical precision”; “Those are gorgeous sentences, but they are also tyrannical…”

And, naturally, most reviews have an artistic/classy/obviouslyterrible picture of the author situated in some set location. One Miss Cristina Nehring is draped oddly against an opened and windowed door, with red curtains on either side. She is wearing a dress that ill-suits her and her hair is frazzled in a way that suggests discomfort or wind, neither being particularly delightful. Another has Kate Walbert sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees and she is staring up into the distance, with a look suggesting something epic and profound – her book is called “A Short History of Women.” My favorite, though, is from a few weeks ago: Arthur Phillips is sitting in a corner booth of some strangely decorated restaurant (it is obviously not a real establishment but a set piece) – deep red drapes over a window that goes nowhere with deep red walls and a painted picture of someone who looks a lot like Confucius – and Mr. Phillips has his elbow on the table and his head resting very uncomfortably in his open palm, smashing his cheek against his fingers. He has a bored look in his eyes and seems like he would rather be elsewhere. I cannot help but comprehend the staged reality of this photo and that someone planned this and thought it was a good idea.

It all makes me wonder about the artistic license we give people nowadays. I suppose on some level a large canvas painted neon green with a red dot in the middle might be considered “art” in some circles, perhaps widely-circulating circules, but I find it tragic that someone is allowed – no, is paid – to take such an awful photograph with the assumption that it does something to add to the review, to the reviewer, and, most dishearteningly of all, the author. Bad execution of normal art standards is something much more grevious than the assertion that something exotic and new is, itself, art.

The awkward summarizations in these review pieces are astonishingly bad. Take, for instance, this opening for today’s Book Review headline piece on Miss Nehring’s new book:

“For most of us love is largely a matter of shared mortgage payments, evenings curled up on the couch in front of a video, or maybe a night in a hotel for an anniversary. But Cristina Nehring has a different idea. Her ardent polemic, “A Vindication of Love,” puts forward a darker, more demanding vision of love. This is not, it should be said right away, a book without ambition: the subtitle is “Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century,” though it is not exactly romance Nehring is writing about, but a more difficult, vital image of passion she believes we have lost.”

Naturally, one might read this lazily and not realize how strangely constructed it is. Katie Roiphe immediately tells us that the book’s author “has a different idea” about love, and that her “ardent polemic” presents a “darker, more demanding vision of love.” So right away, we have a “different idea” about a hotly contested topic (love) and its characterization as “polemic[al].” Why then, Kate Roiphe, do you proceed to tell us “right away” that this is not “a book without ambition?” You have already said that it is a polemical book presenting a “different idea” about LOVE. Is it necessary to point out that it is an ambitious undertaking? Have you not already made the point that it was ambitious? Is your audience moronic and incapable of picking up on subtle hints like “different,” “polemic,” and “more demanding vision of love?”

In any case, I am glad (read: obviously saddened) that Miss Roiphe ended her piece with the following, apparently revelatory anecdote:

“A solid, freckled 5-year-old from my daughter’s class recently came up to me on seeing that I was pregnant [insightful child, by the way]. “Are you going to get married?” she demanded, hands on hips. “Not now,” I said. Which either is or is not a vindication of love.”

What does this mean? Her plan to not get married though pregnant with child (she thinks she is breaking long-standing tradition, here) “either is or is not a vindication of love?” I am unconvinced that Miss Roiphe could even explain that line to me. By not getting married – though heavy with child – she is, on one hand, perhaps vindicating love? And on the other, perhaps not? What does it mean to vindicate love? How does one justify love by not getting married in this situation? Or by getting married? Perhaps she means simply to present Miss Nehring’s case and let it speak for itself, thus she will not comment on whether her situation is a vindication or not? I understand its relation to the title, but I am still lost.

In the end, I am left, confused and startled, to consider the accompanying artwork: two “people” are dancing what appears to be a Tango of some sort. Their bodies, from the shins up, are made entirely of interlocking hands which, in turn, interlock with each other. I am still wondering why their feet are left intact and untouched.

You did, right?  Miss me?  I’ve been out of town for the past few days, but I returned today and after looking at what my fridge had to offer, I plopped down for some catch up with my BFF, DVR.  First up, the Duel.  The challenge was a triathlon sort of sitch, which they did while wearing oddly-eared bobble heads of themselves shaped like enormous lampshades.  But what happened in the downtime was bicuriously fantastic.  Hookups are alwasy aplenty on an MTV show, mostly because they go out of their way to cast people far better looking than the average population.  And this week was no different, with Rachel and Jenn having a reunification of sorts.  One that involved whispers, moans, and kissy noises.  Enough about that, you perverts!  I’m sure you would like to know who went home, if you don’t already.  Jenn faced Katie in a Duel and won.  And Nehemiah foolishly picked Evan, who (barely) beat him.  Now on to some other goodies…

I find it important to note that while away, I read The Starter Wife by Gigi Grazer, which I loved.  Clever, witty, made me laugh out loud.  Loved the miniseries on TV, which, as most shows or movies do, hardly pulled from the novel.  But hey, who cares?  I liked it anyway!  And I saw Wolverine, but I’m going to post about that separately.  On the plane, I watched Blow and Almost Famous, and on land I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Anchorman.  Overall, a good long weekend filled with entertainment galore! 

Lost is one that I adore but you kids don’t seem to read about that much, so I’ll skim.  Eloise Hawking visited Desmond at the hospital after his shooting.  Daniel Faraday is 30 years forward in time, and I still don’t get this time travel/time continuum bullshit.  They need to get their shit together over there in the writing room and bring the cast together in a common year.  I don’t care what year, just freaking pick one where they can all be joyously returned to one anothers’ presence.  Daniel’s mother was a Hostile alongside Whidmore, and he’s going back (going forward?) to the Island to stop the source of energy controlled in what is known as The Hatch.  Twister moment!  I suspected this was going to be the case — Daniel is also a Whidmore.  So he and Penelope are sibs!  Daniel is on a mission to find Eloise but she shoots him.  And after he tells her he’s her son, he looks really dead.  Is he?  I think so but sometimes the dead people on this show aren’t dead even when you’re sure they are and when you aren’t certain, they are!