The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

I can't believe that it will be September next week! Kids are going back to school. It is still full-on summer here in Oregon. I haven't had a twinge of autumn yearning yet and it usually hits me by now. Are you still in summer mode or thinking of sweater weather? 

It doesn't matter if you are still reading your beach books or have made a seasonal switch. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week here on Book Beginnings on Fridays. You can also share from a book you feel like spotlighting. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

“To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.”

-- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

This book has been on my TBR shelf forever. I finally decided to read it with my ears and put the audiobook on hold at my library several months ago. But I kept delaying the hold because I didn't have the energy for a 22 hours of magic realism, which is not my favorite genre.  

But after Rushdie was viciously attacked earlier this month, I knew I had to finally read it. My library hold popped up again, so I am listening to the audiobook. Like Midnight's Children, Rushdie's other famous novel, The Satanic Verses is magical, complicated, funny, outrageous, and brilliant. I should have read it earlier. I'm glad I'm reading it now. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the linky box below and use the #bookbeginnigns hashtag if you share on social media. Thanks for playing along!

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THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Satanic Verses:

Damn you, India, Saladin Chamcha cursed silently, sinking back into his seat. To hell with you, I escaped your clutches long ago, you won’t get your hooks into me again, you cannot drag me back.

Have you read The Satanic Verses? What did you think?

Sleuthing Out Books with My Private Eye -- MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY

I was having lunch with my private eye the other day . . .

That really has nothing to do with anything, but saying it always makes me laugh. And I really do have a private eye. She's amazing! She helps me and my law partner with our sex abuse cases because they usually involve child abuse that happened decades ago. Most often, our clients were molested in the 1980s or 1990s, but we have cases involving abuse as far back as the 1960s. Our private eye finds witnesses and documents to help us prove our cases. 

But what does that have to do with this stack of books? That is a mystery! The solution is that we met for lunch in a suburb of Portland that has a Friends of the Library store I had never explored. It was a really good one. I came home with an overflowing tote bag of books.

See anything here you’d like to investigate?

• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. I read this as an audiobook years ago, loved it, and wanted a book book on my shelves.

• Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather, which I want to read because I love Cather.

• The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro are two plays by Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais, on which the operas by Rossini and Mozart are based. 

• The Spoils of Poynton is a Henry James book I've never heard of.

• The Major Plays of Chekhov is a Signet Classic edition of a book I already have but haven't read. I'm enchanted by Signet Classic covers these days. 

• The Heart of Darkness & The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad is another Signet Classics edition. I got this one because I haven't read The Secret Sharer.

• The Egoist is a tragicomical novel by George Meredith published in 1879. I've never heard of it, but might read it for Victober.

• The Wings of the Dove by Henry James. This is another one I read years ago but wanted to add a Modern Library edition to my collection.

• Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson is a book I know nothing about, But I've never found a Persephone edition at library store so nabbed it. 

• Jane Austen's "juvenilia," because I haven't read any of these and liked the Penguin Classics edition. 

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Again, I read it a long time ago and have a fancy edition. But I wanted a paperback if I want to reread it. 

• The Long Day Waned is Anthony Burgess's "Malayan Trilogy" and all three novels sound really good. 

• Tales of Old Inns by Richard Keverne is a vintage travel guide to England's historic inns and hotels. Pure charm!

• Faith Fox by Jane Gardam I got because I read her Old Filth trilogy last year and now want to read everything she wrote. 

The last books are five Soho Crime books. I realized about a month ago that I had a nice little collection started of Soho Crime mystery books published by Soho Press. Since then, I've looked for more at library stores and found another dozen or so. I like the collection because the color block spines look so cool together. But I like the books because Soho Crime's theme is publishing mystery series set all around the world. For example, Qiu Xiaolong's series is set in China and Eliot Pattison's is set in Tibet.

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

What books came into your house recently?

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house lately. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf, and Velvet of vvb32reads graciously host Mailbox Monday.

The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

After finally finishing The Mirror and the Light, I'm ready for a fast summer read! The Mirror and the Light was interesting, even engaging, but so long. I felt like I was living through Tudor England in real time. 

What are you reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) with us here on Books Beginnings on Fridays. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. 

MY BOOK BEGINING

I was standing at the bar in the Green Parrot, waiting for a guy named Carlos from Miami who’d called my cell a few days ago and said he might have a job for me.

-- The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille. 

That's the kind of opening sentence I like because it creates a visual picture and sets up the story for all sorts of interesting possibilities. We know the narrator drinks, hangs out in fun bars (snooty bars are not named the Green Parrot and customers don't stand at the bar), and works some sort of free lance job where he takes work from strangers who call him out of the blue. He could be anything from a caterer to a mercenary. As it turns out, he has his own charter boat.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginning post in the Linky box below. Please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag if you share on social media.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Cuban Affair:

“We’re not smuggling people out of Cuba.”

“Then what are you doing in Cuba while I’m fishing?”

DeMille knows how to keep a story moving fast. This one is no exception. I just started it and it is racing along. 

The Reservoir by David Duchovny -- BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

The Reservoir by David Duchovny (2022, Akashic Books)

David Duchovny's new books, The Reservoir, is a novella about Ridley, a man living through the lockdown phase of the pandemic in an Upper West Side apartment overlooking the Central Park Reservoir in Manhattan. He retired early from a job on Wall Street, so the lockdown leaves him with time on his hands to contemplate art, solitude, New York, his relationship with his daughter, what it means to be a grandfather, and life itself.

Ridley's reverie is disturbed by a light flashing in the window of an apartment across the park. He believes a woman is communicating to him, trying to make a connection. It may be enough to get him outside of his apartment for the first time in months. His adventure starts there.

I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. What a story! The humor might not appeal to everyone – it reminded me of Philip Roth, masculine, self-deprecating, and subtly sarcastic. But that’s the kind of humor I like. 

The Reservoir is funny, audacious, imaginative, and clever, full of literary allusions and quirky humor. In the end, though, it is a classic tragedy for contemporary times. It’s a story that will stick with me.

NOTES

Yes, we're talking about that David Duchovny, from The X-Files. He writes books. He also has a band. 

Maybe everyone knows these things except me, because I know less than nothing about celebrity news. But I learned about his writing career (and his singing/songwriting) when I watched The Chair, a low-key hilarious tv show in which Sandra Oh plays the chair of the English Department at a Northeast liberal arts college. Duchovny gets foisted on her as the big ticket speaker for the annual literary lecture and she’s peeved. This clip is my favorite scene. Bear with the little ten-second teaser at the beginning. Duchovny plays himself and steals the show. 

When I saw on the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program that he had a new book, I was willing to give it a try. 

Have you read any Duchovny books? Would you read this one?

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Do you read different books in the summer than you do in the winter? I always think I'm going to read something fun and light in the summer, and end up reading the same kinds of books I read the rest of the year. I need to be more conscientious of my seasonal book choices.

But week in and week out, I am here on Fridays to share the opening sentence of the book I'm reading, or just a book I want to highlight, on Book Beginnings on Fridays. Thank you for joining me!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away.

-- The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. 

This is the third book in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy. The first two, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, both won Booker Prizes. I'm afraid that meant she had free reign with this one. I find it long and meandering compared to the first two. I feel like I sat down for a steak and am trying to eat an entire cow!

Have you read this one or the other books in the trilogy?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please leave a link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Mirror and the Light:

Suffolk says, “It’s in every tavern and marketplace. At the very instant Anna’s head leapt from her body, the candles on Katherine’s tomb ignited—without touch of living hand.”

The Reservoir by David Duchovny -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

These summer weeks are just drifting by! Welcome back to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where you can share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also chose to share from a book that captured your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The reservoir is why Ridley took this apartment eleven years ago. A view of water -- so hard to come by in New York City. 

-- The Reservoir by David Duchovny.

Yes, that David Duchovny. We all think of The X-Files when we hear his name. But he writes books. He's also has a band. Not being one to keep up on celebrity news, maybe I'm the last person to know all this, but I about fell out of my chair laughing when I saw Duchovny on The Chair with Sandra Oh. He steals the show with this scene (the clip has a 10 second trailer at the beginning before it starts for real with her knocking on the door -- stick with it).

The Reservoir is Duchovney's new novella, following four novels. He wrote The Reservoir during the pandemic, about a man stuck in his New York apartment during the pandemic. The man believes a woman across Central Park is signaling to him in Morse code and that there is a mystery that can only be solved by discovering what lies at the bottom of the reservoir in the park. It's parts mystery, father/daughter story, dark rom-com, and psychological delusion.

I got my copy of The Reservoir through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. It looks like a quick summer read so I plan to read it this month.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Leave a link to your Book Beginnings post in the Linky box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag. Have fun!

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THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Reservoir:

He showered, shampooed, shaved, trimmed his eyebrows and nose hairs, and doused himself with some old cologne. Does cologne get better with age, like wine?

I Meant to Tell You and The Reservoir -- MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY

What books came into your house last week? 

Two new books came my way. Both look like fun!

I Meant to Tell You by Fran Hawthorne

Fran Hawthorne's new novel, I Meant to Tell You, starts with the disclosure of a little secret and follows the ripple effects of that disclosure. 

Miranda and Russ are engaged to be married and Russ is ready to start a new job in the U.S. Attorney's office. As part of a routine FBI background check, both must disclose any criminal history. Miranda had never told Russ that years earlier, she had tried to help a friend and her child leave the US for Israel during her friend's nasty divorce. Although Miranda did not know this trip was illegal, is was, and she and her friend were arrested at the airport. Miranda was sentenced for a misdemeanor, which was later expunged. Because the conviction was not on her record, she didn't mention it to Russ or the FBI. Big mistake. 

The story unspools from there. Hawthorne narrates the book through the multiple voices of those affected.

I Meant to Tell You doesn't launch until November, but is available for pre-order. I am excited to get my hands on an early review copy. This is Fran Hawthorne's second novel after her 2018 debut, The Heirs. 

The Reservoir by David Duchovny

Yes, David Duchovny from The X-Files writes books. He's also a singer/songwriter. Maybe everyone knew this already, but it was news to me when I watched The Chair with Sandra Oh. Duchovny steals the show with this scene (the clip has a 10 second trailer at the beginning before it starts for real with her knocking on the door -- stick with it). 

The Reservoir is Duchovney's new novella, which he wrote during the pandemic, about a man stuck in his New York apartment during the pandemic. The man becomes convinced a woman across Central Park is signaling to him in Morse code and that the key to the mystery lies at the bottom of the reservoir in the park. It's part dark rom-com, part mystery, part psychological delusion.

The Reservoir is out now. I scored a review copy from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. It looks like a perfect summer read so I plan to read it this month.

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house last week. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf, and Velvet of vvb32reads graciously host Mailbox Monday.