RIP Jackie Collins! You will be very missed

From the time I was able to read the "big girl books" thanks to my mom and my SIL who always had the latest and greatest) Jackie Collins was one of my very my favorites. I had surpassed the syrupy (but well loved) Danielle Steel and found myself in the company of the Hollywood Rich and Famous. Which are still my favorite books to go to when I want to take off time from reading my usual dense head throbbing books. And back then,  Jackie Collins provided those thick hardbacks filled with fast cars, women, men, luxury and villains. Step aside Sydney Sheldon!

I read that she had passed away while cruising through the stream of Facebook this morning and had to sit for a moment, as I do, to think about what she meant to me. I mean, our author village that we grew up in were comprised of the very people that wrote... words, stories and characters that shaped our world. 

I knew she was a good writer, she had great plot lines and always, always gave us bling. Tons of bling in every category AND intrigue with loads of danger. She had the gift to get all us readers fired up on her books wanting more . And in those days, it took a LONG time to get to the next book! 

May she rest in peace. God bless her family who have our hearts and prayers and good positive vibes from the very fans who thought she was a wonderful part of our village. I have had Santangelos on my TBR list, I  think I am going to hike it  up to the top now. She deserves that. 

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And to those suffering with breast cancer, I have had three people whom I love dearly fight it around the same time two years ago~it's up to us to make sure that we do all we can to monitor  and care  for our beloved bodies. I am unsure of the story behind Jackie Collins but it's so important:  Make your mammo appointment today. Says Cheryl RN.

Fall, books and what's blogging got to do with it?

First, I wanted to thank you for following me! For those of you that are not professional writers, the bloggers like me going out on a limb to blog publicly, we are brave! And it's truly like jumping off a cliff.  You have this itch to write, you have things to say or review or show people and that should be the parachute for your jump. With your bag of goals strapped to you back and your followers, no matter how big or small, lifting you up to help you find yourself in a perfect place to write about the things you love the most. No matter how scary it is, do it. Jump. I am so grateful that I had the nerve to do it. Being here is a lot of fun.

My goings on (and it's a bit rushed, sorry!)

• The Girl in the Spider's Web is ticking along. As I said before to someone somewhere, it doesn't have the complexity but it's a good story so far. Lullaby Girl by Aly Sidgwick is a real book (the former is on my iPad) which I read at night. I am enjoying both, and they can be read simultaneously. 
• Tomorrow is a Library book sale. I am going to hit that up with a friend. They have used new hardbacks that were just published. I had a give-away on my book group and it was wonderful to send off a book in mint condition. This library is the next town over. I have joined our own library a couple of weeks ago! Talk about thrilled! I may have mentioned it here. 
• My goal is to save money and still get the books I want so patience, looking into library book sales and the used bookstore plus going online for Bookperks and Bookgorilla, is a huge money saving adventure. That way, when I do go to Barnes and Noble for a hardback "I have to have" is not such a horrible matter when I buy it for a few more beans. It makes it special. 
• I borrowed The Paris Winter by Imogen Robertson (see photo) which isn't my kind of book but it jumped out at me when I signed up at the library. I figured it's not a book I would buy so the library is a perfect place to try new genres! Just take them back if you don't like them! Win Win for everyone!
  
• Fall is a great time to read with the chilly weather bound to come in. And it will be the holiday season soon enough. I have said to some friends on FB (in a group) that it's okay to take time out for yourselves, the holidays are not the be all end all of who you are. I will plan to write a couple of blogs like I did last year about savings and books you can buy for whom and all that fun stuff. 
• I hope everyone has a great week. I will probably return with The Lullaby Girl as the first review in a week. Have a good one. Again, thank you for being here, it means the world!

Books, TV and Christmas!

 My friend, Anne, sent this book to me today! What a treat! We were having quite a time with the kid and the puppy doing things kids and puppies do and the doorbell rang , I found a box with this book in it from the mailman. It made my whole day. So I MUST read this after the Lisbeth book.

Thanks to another friend, Jane, Fringe was recommended as we just (barely) made it through The Killing series (slow!) We love this show. Great actors, great arcs and more arcs and parallel universes and fringe science mixed with forensics. Highly recommended.

There are Christmas trees in a store near us. I am sure there are Christmas trees in a store near you. What does this have to do with books? Christmas is not an enjoyable time for me to read as it's too crazy. I look at those lights and trees and balls and blingy hangy things like a steamship leaving the port with every book I own on it.  Not to mention I would like to carve a pumpkin and eat some turkey first, thank you.

That's about all this week, along with the normal things we do. There are a lot of great Fall books coming out, I just doused my entire book group with the beautiful new covers and descriptions. I think it will be a good Christmas (cough) for those that ask for books. (Trying to make this all work, how am I doing?)

Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

I will never forget Jane Lynch's character in Christopher Guest's Best In Show. She was so funny and vivacious in the movie that everyone else paled and they are not pale actors! I never watched Glee, not sure why, maybe because I hang out on Netflix more than any other place of entertainment. I may have to check into the show now that I read this book.

This is a very fast read. I wasn't disappointed as I had an inkling that due to probable contractual issues she could not talk about the CG movies like I wanted her to. Plus she was serious. I was expecting a bit of funny. However, this book was her story. It was about her life, stage by stage with all of   her anxieties, fears, and troubles with her sexuality as she couldn't come out in the seventies even with her quirky family and her desperate need to feel a part of something. And that something ended up being acting in which she truly did have many happy accidents along the way. She did come out and is very happy now, but you can read all about it in her book.

I have to be honest I raced through this book for two reasons, it's a library book and I am also reading two other books as well. I am sorry, Jane! 

Borrow it,  but if you are a huge fan, you may want her book in your library!

I am so excited I could scream. But I won't. Not yet.

 Lisbeth Salander.

Normally, I do not get excited over other authors writing the next book in a series that only the original author should write.  Stieg Larsson should be writing this book. Mr. Larsson is no longer with us and that makes me sad to see it in writing, but I am excited to see the story live on. His characters in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series are one of my favorite fictional characters in a series to date. When he passed away I felt incredibly sad for him, for his family, friends, the WORLD.

I was so excited to get this book the other night, I pre-ordered it and had prayed to God that it was just as good as the other books. When I started it I whispered, "I am so excited I could scream!" But I didn't or my husband would have had a heart attack, he was sleeping. But I was wide eyed and awake!

I have been tired lately and falling asleep in seconds. Last night I read all of 28 pages and felt the pull of the story once again. Complexities of Larsson's writing are missing but it's a good story and I feel that Lagercrantz nails the mood of Blomkvist,  I do. 

We shall see how it goes, I will post a review immediately when finished. A scream or a sob, I will lay it on the line here.

By the way, though I like (like) the English version of the movie. The Swedish version is a million times better, so if you are into seeing this ever, please, put up with subtitles, it's worth it.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

This is going to be a difficult review as I read this book on my iReader over four months. Maybe three. I can't even remember. Our summer was busy so I pulled what I call "The Goldfinch Read" as when I had read that book over Christmas chunks of the beginning were tucked far away in my overused brain to remember when I picked it up again later in the new year. I did the same with this book so I had to go back and re-read the beginning again to write this.

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, did stick to my ribs. I love her writing, the plot is a ten plus and the characters were beyond any great expectations of a reader. Setting is extraordinary and very creative.

I loved this book.

It was a quiet story about a virus that wipes out most of  the world's civilization (stay with me here I know you heard that line before) but pockets of people are alive and we only care and focus on a small number of characters on their journey through two decades.

And you feel the isolation as much as the characters do.

I am serious, you feel alone when you read it. It didn't matter if I was in a crowd or not I could feel the expanse of everything decaying throughout the story all by  itself.

A famed actor named Arthur Leander plays King Lear on stage one snowy night. He is performing around King Lear's three young daughters during a scene where things deteriorate rapidly. The reader spends the rest of the book with one of the child actors, Kirstin,  as well as the man, Jeevan, who was also attending the play that  same night the Georgian Flu becomes an international crisis.

It isn't tough, or  grimy or zombie rumble tumble,  although, you do have some feral as well as cult-like individuals showing up.  It's mostly reflective of Arthur's past circle of people intertwining with the present people during the next  two decades up to post Georgia Flu Year Twenty. Nostalgia seems to be the cornerstone of the story. As Kirsten and The Shakespearean Company walks many miles looking for people or towns to perform for,  the reader goes back and forth from present to past and back again, we learn more and more about the characters and how this new world impacts them, I wanted more but it was enough. It was a perfect read.

This is why I loved the writing:

~On silent afternoons in his brother’s apartment, Jeevan found himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work, the entire operation grinds to a halt. No one delivers fuel to the gas stations or the airports. Cars are stranded. Airplanes cannot fly. Trucks remain at their points of origin. Food never reaches the cities; grocery stores close. Businesses are locked and then looted. No one comes to work at the power plants or the substations, no one removes fallen trees from electrical lines. Jeevan was standing by the window when the lights went out.
There was a stupid moment or two when he stood near the front door, flipping the light switches. On/off, on/off.~ from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I don't want to spoil any of this for you, it's a book to be read not over three to four months but over a short amount of time so you can savor every morsel of it.

I hope Station Eleven will be a movie someday it would be perfect.

Buy it