The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me on Book Beginnings on Fridays to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.

-- from The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. That is a terrific opening sentence! One of the best I've read in a long time. It hints at so much story to come and I immediately want to read the rest of the book.

And I almost didn't. I disliked Groff's other book, Fates and Furies, so much that I almost plucked this from my TBR shelf to put in a Little Free Library. But I decided to give it a try as one of my TBR 23 in '23 books and I am glad I did. 

I ended up enjoying this rollicking, shaggy story of Templeton and its generations of rowdy townsfolk much more than I expected. It is loosely based on the history of Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and on the stories written by one of the town's forefathers, James Fennimore Cooper. 

Have you read either The Monsters of Templeton or Fates and Furies? What did you think?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Monsters of Templeton:

He squeezed his eyes shut. And, thus safe against my mother’s magnificent though untethered bosoms, he explained as calmly as he could that Marmaduke Temple was perhaps the archetypical American, the first self-made man; that he, a Quaker, had slaves was scandal enough; and far worse, that he, a married man, had relations with his slaves – scandalous!

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me on Book Beginnings on Fridays to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"I'm sorry, Hawthorne. But the answer's no. Our deal is over."

-- from The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz. 

This is the latest -- the fourth -- book in Anthony Horowitz's "Hawthorne & Horowitz" series. I loved the first three and this one is just as much fun. The premise is that Anthony Horowitz is a character in the books, playing himself. Detective Hawthorne, a retired police office brought in to consult on cases, hires Horowitz to write "true crime" books about the murder cases he's working on. I love them!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Twist of a Knife:

"But you've got to see things from my point of view. You can't have a main character who doesn't give anything away, and frankly, being with you, I feel I'm up against a brick wall.”

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fourth literary whodunit following The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, and A Line to Kill, Horowitz becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation—and only one man can prove his innocence: his newly estranged partner in solving crime, Detective Hawthorne.

2022 European Reading Challenge -- WINNER!

 

2022 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE

TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR!

THIS IS THE WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST FOR 2022

TO FIND THE 2022 REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO FIND THE 2022 WRAP UP POSTS, GO TO THIS PAGE

THE 2023 EUROPEAN READING CHALLENGE SIGN UP IS AT THIS PAGE

2022 was the tenth anniversary of the European Reading Challenge! The challenge involves reading books set in different European countries or written by authors from different European countries.

Big thanks to all the participants who joined me for the Grand Tour in its tenth year!

JET SETTER GRAND PRIZE WINNER

The 2022 Jet Setter prize goes to Sabine at sabines.literary.world who participated on Instagram, visited all 50 European states, and reviewed the books she read. Her wrap up post discusses her reading journey.

Honorary Mention (but no prizes) go to the six other participants who completed the challenge and posted wrap up posts about the countries they visited and the book they read:

• Sue at Carey Family (5)
• Avid Series Reader (10)
• Maphead's Book Blog (20)
• Cinzia at Quattro passi sulle nuvole (13)
• Kym at Just a Second (4 countries in three books)
• Reese at Typings (13)

My own wrap-up post is here. I read nine books from different European countries, although only two were translations, which is backsliding from the year before. I didn't even try to review the books I read, which is too much as long as I am running my own law firm.

Congratulations to all the readers who completed the 2022 challenge! 

There is still plenty of time to join us in 2023.

JOIN THE 2023 CHALLENGE! SIGN UP HERE

The gist: The idea is to read books by European authors or books set in European countries (no matter where the author comes from). The books can be anything – novels, short stories, memoirs, travel guides, cookbooks, biography, poetry, or any other genre. You can participate at different levels, but each book must be by a different author and set in a different country – it's supposed to be a tour.

Sign up HERE for the 2023 Challenge.

The Promise of a Normal Life by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me each week on Friday to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading. Feel free to share instead from a book that caught your fancy or you feel like highlighting. Please hop around and visit the other participants!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

There's a picture of me, at eighteen, on the boat to Israel.

-- from The Promise of a Normal Life by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson. This debut novel finds a young Jewish-American woman trying to find her way in 1960s America and Israel. It launched this week from Skyhorse Publishing and I look forward to reading it!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Promise of a Normal Heart:

Polina had gorgeous high heels, also white, that showed under the dress. In the photograph, which was a formal picture from Brooks Portraits, Polina was seated, gazing, so her neck was long, over her right shoulder at the camera.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

For readers of Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, and Katie Kitamura, the indelible journey of a quiet young woman—the “silent person” in the Seder—finding her way.

Hailed as “radiant and transporting” (Margot Livesey), The Promise of a Normal Life is a poet’s debut novel, so evocative of life as lived that it transports you to a time and place you can practically see, touch, and feel. The unnamed narrator is a fiercely observant, introverted Jewish-American girl who seems to exist in a private and separate realm. . . . 

 
Along the way, she meets a glamorous hairdresser on a cruise ship to Israel, loopy tarot-card-reading passengers, and Alice-in-Wonderland lawyers in Haifa. There’s a blue-eyed all-American college boyfriend, a mystified tourist agent in the Lofoten Islands, a handsome eligible rabbi in LA, a righteous and self-absorbed MIT professor, and a clandestine, calculating lover in Boston. Eventually, she finds her own compass, but only after being swept to several distant shores by many winds.

Thirst by K.L. Barron -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me each week on Friday to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading. Feel free to share instead from a book that caught your fancy or you feel like highlighting. Please hop around and visit the other participants!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The commune dogs loped after us through the garden, past the yellow heads of sunflowers, over the ripe strawberries we didn't pick to sell at the market but left for the birds, cutting sharp turns against the sea- colored herbs, their fragrance clinging to our skin, to our destination: a concrete statue in a cemetery, an unnamed young girl holding a flower basket.

-- from Chapter One, "Summer, Gaia Commune, Central Valley, California, 1989," in Thirst by K.L. Barron. 

Although this story starts in California, Thirst takes place in Africa, among the Tuareg people of Niger. It only came out recently and I am excited to read it. 

Thirst would make a good companion read with Blue Dessert by Celia Jeffries (reviewed here), also about the Tuareg society. Thirst has a more contemporary setting, in 1989-1990, when the Tuaregs' traditional, nomadic culture is in grave risk of dying out. Blue Dessert is set in the early 1900s, when the Tuaregs' way of life was on the cusp of inevitable conflict with modernization. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Thirst:

He spent his days protecting his family's goats and came back at night to protect me. This is before he tells me his father thinks I'm a government spy and sends him to spy on me.