Last Mountain by Robert C. Fleet

First sentence:

"How long it has since sunset he did not know."

Description:

Real World

Nancy del Rio is a teenager struggling to grow up in the gang-ridden streets of Los Angeles. But Immigration wants to send her away from the only home she's ever known.

Real Magic

For centuries the Unicorn has been hunted for the magic of his horn, but the call of beauty can still draw him from hiding. Now the chase is on for both Nancy and the Unicorn. They are each other's only hope. And only together can they hope to reach...

Last Mountain

My thoughts:

This was a good fantasy book. I liked the account of Cortes in Mexico from the Unicorn's point of view. I also liked Nancy's interactions with her family and Karus, the Rider.

Date read: 1/31/2012
Book #: 3
Challenges: TBR Challenge 2012; New Author Challenge, Whats in a Name 5 Challenge, Off the Shelf Challenge, A-Z Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0441000622
ISBN-13: 9780441000623
Publisher: Ace Books
Year: 1994
# of pages: 288
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

First sentence:

"I might as well say, right from the jump, it wasn't my usual kind of job."


Description:

"Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book expert, has been offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding--an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair--she begins to unlock the book's mysteries, ushering in its exquisite and atmospheric past, from its salvation back to its creation through centuries of exile and war.

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity--an acclaimed and ambitious work from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book. I especially liked learning about the Haggadah through the lives of the people who made it, owned it, and used it.


Date read: 1/23/2012
Book #: 2
Challenges: A to Z Challenge 2012, Off the Shelf Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0143115006
ISBN-13: 9780143115007
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2008
# of pages: 368
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Dancing with Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas

First sentence:

"For the first time in the history of humankind, the turn of the millennium was tracked around the globe like an incoming comet zooming over the earth from the black night sky."

Description:

"It was the revelation of the millennium: witches, werewolves, vampires, and other supernaturals are real. Fast-forward thirteen years: TV reporter Delilah Street used to cover the small-town bogeyman beat back in Kansas, but now, in high-octane Las Vegas--which is run by a werewolf mob--she finds herself holding back the very gates of Hell. At least she has a hot new guy and one big bad wolf-hound to help her out..." -- from the back cover


My thoughts:

This was a good paranormal fantasy. I liked the mix of the mysterious and supernatural in the Las Vegas setting. I also liked Delilah's interactions with Hector, her familiar Quicksilver, Ric and the CineSims. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Brimstone Kiss.

Date read: 1/3/2012
Book #: 1
Series: Delilah Street, #1
Challenges: Off the Shelf Challenge 2012, A to Z Challenge 2012
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy

ISBN-10: 0809572036
ISBN-13: 9780809572038
Publisher: Juno Books
Year: 2007
# of pages: 394
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Little, Big by John Crowley

First sentence:

"On a certain day in June, 19--, a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood, that he had been told of but had never visited."

Description:

"Edgewood is many houses, all put inside each other, or across each other. It’s filled with and surrounded by mystery and enchantment: the further in you go, the bigger it gets.

Smoky Barnable, who has fallen in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, comes to Edgewood, her family home, where he finds himself drawn into a world of magical strangeness.

Crowley’s work has a special alchemy - mixing the world we know with an imagined world which seems more true and real. Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Little, Big is eloquent, sensual, funny and unforgettable." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a very good and complex fantasy novel. Though I often felt lost, especially with repeating and similar names, I enjoyed learning about the world of Edgewood, and its inhabitants.

Date read: 12/21/2011
Book #: 24
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-10: 185798711X
ISBN-13: 9781857987119
Publisher: Millennium
Year: 1981
# of pages: 538
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

First sentence:

"Bill Nagle's life changed the day a fisherman sat beside him in a ramshackle bar and told him about a mystery he had found lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."

Description:

"In the fall of 1991, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey, weekend scuba divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler made a startling discovery under decades of accumulated sediment: a World War II German U-boat, its interior a maze of twisted metal and human bones. Equally astonishing: All the official records agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat at that location. Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see the end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, were drawn into a deep bond of friendship. As the men's marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting for more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This book combined many of my interests and knowledge. I always like reading about nautical adventures and I have worked as an archivist for nearly twenty years. I enjoyed reading how Chatterton and Kohler researched the history of World War II German U-boats and how they gathered evidence from the submarine to discover the truth.

Date read: 11/4/2011
Book #: 23
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Nonfiction

ISBN-10: 0375760989
ISBN-13: 9780375760983
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2004
# of pages: 335
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

First sentence:

"It was November."

Description:


"All children mythologize their birth. . . .So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself--all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book about tales, both personal and literary. I especially liked how Margaret learned the truth about Vida's life.

Date read: 9/9/2011
Book #: 22
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0743298020
ISBN-13: 9780743298025
Publisher: Atria Books
Year: 2006
# of pages: 406
Binding: Hardcover
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The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

First sentence:

"'Everyone in Venice is acting,' Count Girolamo Marcello told me."

Description:

"Venice--a city of masks and riddles, where narrow streets and passageways form a giant maze that confounds the uninitiated and deepens the sense of mystery. As captivating as it is elusive, the city teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Architectural treasures crumble--foundations shift, ornaments fall--even as efforts to preserve them are under way. In The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt, author of the record-breaking bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, unveils the enigmatic Venice as only he can.

The story opens on the evening of January 29, 1996, when a sensational fire destroys the historic Fenice Opera House. The loss of the Fenice, where five of Verdi's operas premiered, is a catastrophe for Venetians, made worse by the revelation that arson might have been the cause. Arriving three days after the fire, Berendt inquires into the nature of life in this remarkable city while gradually revealing the truth about the fire. In the course of his investigations, he encounters a rich cast of characters: a hard-as-nails prosecutor who blushes when he's angered; the First Family of American expatriates facing the loss of their palace on the Grand Canal after four generations of ownership; a contemporary Venetian surrealist painter known locally as an outrageous prankster and provocateur; a twenty-first-generation master glassblower whose sons are locked in a dynastic war; and numerous others--pigeon trappers, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, a believer in Martians, the Plant Man, the Rat Man of Treviso, and Henry James.

Berendt tells a tale full of atmosphere and surprise as the stories build, one after the other, ultimately coming together to portray a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting. The fire and its aftermath serve as a leitmotif that runs through the book, contributing to the ever-mounting suspense and revealing the city of Venice in all its magic, mystery and decadence." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about Venice - its history, people and events, especially in the late 20th century.

Date read: 8/29/2011
Book #: 21
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Nonfiction

ISBN-10: 1594200610
ISBN-13: 9781594200618
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Year: 2005
# of pages: 398
Binding: Trade Paperback
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