Classics Club Spin #7 Results!

The results for the spin are in!

The number chosen is...

17

And so I will be reading...

I am slightly intimidated by the size - but who am I to be daunted by thousand-page tomes? I've read Les Miz AND Gone With the Wind TWICE. Clearly I have nothing to fear when it comes to the size of my spin book. 

Have you read Hunchback? What did you think of it?

And do you get intimidated by large books?

~Sophia

Beautiful People #3: da Vale

It's that time again! Time for another character interview! And this time, it's a villain... 
Let me introduce you to Angelo da Vale, a member of the Council of the Ten, the most important judicial body in Venice. 
Also, I usually don't have a picture of my character, but I found one of da Vale! Except I think there should be slight hints of graying in his hair. He's a bit older.

Anyway, here we go:

1) What does your character regret the most in their life?
Regret? What is regret? Da Vale has no time for regret. He has a Council to run and a Doge to usurp!


But secretly, though he keeps pushing it away, he regrets breaking his relationship with his sister because of a small familial altercation. Justice was on his side, so he still feels he was in the right, but a small, hidden piece of his heart still misses her.

2) What is your character's happiest memory? Most sorrowful memory?

His happiest memory is when his love said she would marry him, twenty years ago. 

And there are two memories tied for most sorrowful.
One is his mother's face when da Vale said that he would never speak to his sister again.
And the second is when his fiance walked away from him, saying that da Vale's ambition was taking him from her. The next year, he heard of her marriage to another man.

3) What majorly gets on your character’s nerves?

V, another member of the Council of the Ten, who doesn't have a name yet. Da Vale highly suspects V of seeing through him, but V just keeps dropping little hints, and acting mysteriously, and da Vale CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF HIM figure out how much V knows.

In other words, da Vale hates hates hates when people aren't transparent, or at least translucent. He prides himself on being able to see through people with just a little bit of inconspicuous probing.

Of course, he isn't transparent at all himself, but that's different (See #8)

4) Do they act differently when they're around people as opposed to being alone? If so, how?

He's quieter when he's alone, because he doesn't have an appearance to uphold. It's hard being a de facto leader and having to hide it. It takes effort pretending he's just at the level of all the other Council-members.

5) What are their beliefs and superstitions? (Examples: their religion or lack of one, conspiracy theories, throwing salt, fear of black cats.)
Well, he's Catholic, like everyone in Venice, at least in name. He goes to Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral every Sunday -
But really? Though he believes in God, he doesn't believe that God is minutely involved in the everyday life of humans. God is responsible for the Divine judgment once people die.
Here on earth, Da Vale will be the Judge, at least for Venetians.

6) What are their catchphrases, or things they say frequently?

"Now, now, let's not lose our heads."

7) Would they be more prone to facing fears or running from them?

I think running from them, but not exactly. More like covering them with a sheet and letting them gather dust. And then occasionally returning to them to see if they are still hidden properly.

8) Do they have a good self image?

Ha, what a question. 
Oh yes, definitely.

9) Do they turn to people when they're upset, or do they isolate themselves?

Da Vale trusts no one. He would never turn to anyone when he's upset, for fear of their usurping him and discovering his secrets.

10) If they were standing next to you would it make you laugh or cry?

Cry. Or just feel super uncomfortable, at least. He has a disturbing kind of smile.

What do you think of da Vale?

Have you written any favorite villains?

~Sophia

Classics Club Spin #7

It is time for another Spin! 
Here are the rules, for those of you not familiar with it.

1. I pick out 20 books from my Classics Club list and number them 1-20
2. The Classics Club announces a number on Monday, August 11th.
3. I read the book that I assigned to that number by October 6th!

Again, I'm going to reuse the list from my last spin, and replace the one book I've read since. (Wow, great progress - not!)
So here's the list:

Rereads:
1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
3. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy

I Can't Wait to Read:

6. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 

7. 1984 by George Orwell

8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

10. The Sea Wolf by Jack London

I'm Dreading:
11. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace (I started this one a few years back and only got a few chapters in.)
12. The White Company by A. Conan Doyle (Can you believe I've started this one twice and haven't finished it yet?)
13. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Well, this is both dreaded and anticipated. I'm both excited yet a little intimidated by the size...)
14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I'm Neutral About:
16. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
17. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
18. The Man Who would be King by Rudyard Kipling

19. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

20. The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Good luck to all participating!

~Sophia

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Store // So Very 2013

 

Summary

 

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything—instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond its walls.

First off, yes, this cover DOES glow in the dark. I tested it. How awesome is that?

Anyway.
This was, quite possibly, the first book that I picked up at the library for no other reason but that it seemed interesting, based on the title and inside blurb. I had heard nothing about this book, either in the blogosphere or from my friends.
It is very, very rare for me to risk valuable reading time on a book that could, quite possibly, be a waste of that time. There are so many excellent books to read that I don't want to spend a single minute reading something terrible. So I generally rely on the recommendations of friends who share my reading tastes, or the reviews of bloggers I like.

Mr. Penumbra's turned out to be NOT a waste of time, luckily. It was fun and funny, and I wouldn't mind reading more of Robin Sloan's books. He has a friendly, causal writing style that suits our first-person narrator, and you can clearly tell that Slows loves and knows books and bibliophiles.
His writing makes me laugh. Here's one of my favorites:

"So we'll use hundreds of machines to do it all at once. We'll use Hadoop."
"Hadoop."
Everybody uses it. Google, Facebook, the NSA. It's software - it breaks a big job into lots of tiny pieces and spreads them out to lots of different computers at the same time."
Hadoop! I love the sound of it. Kat Potente, you and I will have a son, and we will name him Hadoop, and he will be a great warrior, a king!

Mr. Penumbra's is written in a very modern style. What I mean by this is that there are countless references to events, brands, and pop culture that are undeniably NOW. The setting can only be 2013 USA - no question about it.
My personal favorite reference that Sloan makes is the wonderful xkcd webcomic (which I love) - but you can see how that definitely confines the book to a certain year.
Not that that is bad, of course. It's just that I haven't seen it to this extent in a contemporary book.
(Though that may not mean anything - I haven't read many contemporary books.)
(But I compare this to The Raven Boys, which, though clearly modern, is not defined as 201X.)

Mr. Penumbra deals very much with the tension between traditional pre-tech practices and more modern technology. The entire story is about this pull. Is it all right to solve an age old puzzle by using Google's powerful programs? Sloan manages to find a satisfactory middle ground, and even makes fun of the popular argument - "Paper or e-books?" He knows all the supporting points on both sides. :-)
It's interesting, because we get to see a full range - from people who entirely support technology and cannot deal with analog, to those who abhor anything that hints at high-tech.
Corvina, the head of a secret society and , in a sense, the villain of the story, is one of the latter. Kat, Clay's girlfriend, is the complete opposite:

Kat bought a New York Times but couldn't figure out how to operate it, so now she's fiddling with her phone.

And Clay, along with Penumbra himself, is somewhere in the middle.

I did some research, because I was wondering about some of the historical characters that pop up in Mr. Penumbra. Turns out some of them are real, and others are figments of Sloan's mind.

1. The software Hadoop is real.
2. Gerritszoon, the typeface that is widely mentioned in the book, is not real, and neither is Griffo Gerritszoon, its creator.
3. Aldus mantius, the Venetian publisher and printer, who was apparently friends with a Francisco Griffo, was a real person. (See link for #2)

The one thing that stuck out for me (in a bad way) was the abundance of easy solutions whenever Clay and Penumbra and Co. hit a roadblock. Everyone had connections and everyone had simple ways of getting out of problems. Need someone with money? Oh yeah, your friend from highschool is a rich computer programmer now. Need access to a huge, powerful computer system? Oh wait - your girlfriend works for Google and can get you immediate access.
It was a bit annoying, but easily overlookable, since they weren't deus ex machinas and didn't just pop up from nowhere.

So overall, a fun read!

Have you read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore? What did you think?
And what is your opinion on grounding non-historical books in a specific year?

~Sophia

Top Ten Tuesday: Classics I Recommend to Non-Classic Readers

Hosted as always by the wonderful people at The Broke and the Bookish.

Today's topic is Books I Would Recommend to People Who Have Never Read X. And my X today is Classics.

One of the major reasons people avoid Classics is because they are just so dang loooooong.
So here are some nice short ones to start you non-classical folks off with!

1. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
Full of suspense, romance, mysterious death, creepy housekeepers, a title character who is DEAD for the entire book (not a spoiler) - oh yes, this book is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that Alfred Hitchcock made a movie of it.

2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.
I could gush about the writing in this book forever. Forever!
And it deals with life so straightforwardly and candidly. I definitely need to reread this book sometime soon.

3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
One of the greatest heroines in all of classic literature, in my opinion. Quite the strong lady.

4. Any book by H.G. Wells.
Some of the greatest Sci Fi. And very short reads, too! (Here's my review of The Island of Doctor Moreau.)



5. Any Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 
Who doesn't know who Sherlock Holmes is?
There are four novellas, but if you want something even shorter, there are the 56 individual short stories.

(And then you can watch Sherlock and feel awesome when you catch the show subtly referencing the original book.)

6. Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
In my opinion, the best of his books, though Kidnapped and The Black Arrow aren't too bad either. And Black Arrow has better female characters than any of the others.
(Also, can I say that the Disney movie of Treasure Island sucks? The 1934 one is even worse. The best is the one with Charleton Heston.)
(Can I also say that my sister had a humongoid crush on main character Jim Hawkins for practically the first twelve years of her life? She was so ready to marry him. :-D )

7. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Because guys, these are some of my favorite books ever! There's so much more to them than meets the eye... (even going beyond the whole Christian thing)

8. Edgar Allen Poe's creepy stories, such as:

(the creepiest, imo)

9. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Adorable and deep at the same time.

10. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Well, this one's not exactly short, but... it never slows, that's for sure. The plot twists and turns in a thousand different directions, and neatly ties up in the end. It is some of the greatest plotting ever done by humankind.
But be sure to get a good translation. I read the one below.

(The Modern Library Classics, translated by Lorenzo Carcaterra)

Do you read classics? If so - which would you recommend to non-classic readers? And - if you have one - what's you're favorite classic?
If you don't read classics - any particular reason why not?

~Sophia

The Bible Project: Week 31 (Song of Songs; Wisdom; Sirach)

This is a love song. This is a love story.

It is beautiful.

The common interpretation of this book is that Jesus is the Groom and we as the members of his Church are the Bride. This is, of course, a fine interpretation, and a legitamate one.

But an alternate way to look at Song of Songs is as the ideal portrayal of human love. It is an excellence to strive towards in our relationships and shows that human relationships can be sacred, too.

And it's also super romantic. A reading from the Song of Songs would be excellent to have at a wedding ceremony!

Fun fact - my name means "wisdom." (I hope I live up to it.)

What this means is that I have two patron saints. One is St. Sophia of Rome, who was martyred in 304.

And the second is Holy Wisdom, who was there when God created the world.

The book of Wisdom speaks of "Wisdom" personified as a woman, St. Sophia. 

The writer uses personification as a good tool to help the reader relate, and make it easier for them to 'follow wisdom.' There have been so many rules in the Bible so far - from the survival rules in Leviticus, to the spiritual rules in Proverbs, and so many more. But with Wisdom, we have something a bit different.

We have a characterization of a great woman (Wisdom herself), and told to strive for her. We have a goal, something to reach for, something physical. It's not just a list of rules anymore. If you achieve Wisdom, you achieve closeness with God.

....and we're back to more life advice, Proverbs-style. 

Uh, I don't have much to say, because this is very much like Proverbs. Sirach and Solomon both had some good advice.

Here's a good one:

Before investigating, find no fault; examine first, then criticize.
Before hearing, answer not, and interrupt no on in the middle of his speech. (Sirach 11:7-8)

~Sophia

Camp NaNo Concluding Thoughts

Yep, that's right, I won!

Thank God.

I wrote 35,079 words.
The climax of the month occurred between 7pm and 11:45pm on July 31st, when I wrote a total of 5,000 words in order to reach my winning goal.

Look at that crazy jump on Day 31! (I'm just a bit proud of myself, if you can't tell...)

I still don't know how the heck I wrote 5k words in a little under 5 hours.
That's not natural for me, unless I actually have a constant flow of ideas - which I didn't.
The only way I think that I managed to write that many words on that final day was by switching my POV from Zaneta 3rd person limited to a couple other characters.
I don't know if that's how it'll be in my final draft, but for now - hey, it worked!

Though I did end up with some funny NaNoisms, which I will share below.
This is me on minimal sleep at 11pm.
I warned you.

She watched as the two men sized each other up amidst the noisy onlookers. Q lunged, but his opponent was smaller and was able to twist out of the way, attacking Q from the side. This fight is really boring. Anyway, they fight. Oh my gawsh the little guy is getting super nimble and his is attacking Q from all sides. But Q is bigger and has stronger punches. Waa what a fight! This is doing nothing for my novel. Oh my gawsh they're both bleeding now but still going strong.The door burst open and the spindly soldier burst in, waving his sword.

Then, I tried to write, "He was no common prisoner," 

And instead I wrote, "He had no common present."

 [Sorry, I don't have names for the characters below.]

"Excuse me!" V repeated, and stood up.

"What is it?" E asked, annoyed.

"I have to make a revolt (??)" V said. "A discussion (no) a depression no a diversion no a digression no an insistance no an awesome story that is what i need to make but now I am drowning in darkness and exhaustion and I don't know how to pull simple words from my brain so thus I must write random thoughts so you will get a stream of conciousness here instead of V's argument against the E because all that V wants to do is just argue with E. I know there are ulterior motives but I have no idea what they are and I probably won't find out tonight, I just need words and words and words, and this is V giving his dilemma no his disagreement? closer I beg to differ? no but closer what is that WORD I CANNOT THINK OF IT.

Oh my gawsh only 1k words left.

So V made his whatever-you-call-it and it was annoying and he sees under E's guise - he sees E's ulterior motives.

Can he know? E wondered. Have I given it away? He pushed the thought out of his head. V must just be being his old annoying self.

E dismisses V's arguments skilfully and P stands up.

P creaked to his feet.

"This meeting... is now... dismissed!" he croaked, and, taking his cane, he slowly began making his way towards the door.

Thank God.

[I think I was trying to say 'objection,' but was fixated on it starting with the letter d for some reason.]

 So there you have me at my worst. :-)

But I did it.
I'm going to take a couple weeks off from this story, and then dive back in, hopefully refreshed. It went in completely the wrong direction, so now I'm going to attempt to steer it in the way I'd like it to go.
I really do like the first bunch of chapters, but then the magic (literally) just disappears from the story, so I've got to do something about that.

But that is for September-ish.

Did you do Camp NaNo? If so - how'd it go?
If not - are you writing anything interesting?

~Sophia

P.S. Bible Project going up tomorrow.