BTT (#11) ~ Queue

I don't think of my books as being in queues, but that's our assignment for this week's Booking Through Thursday.

What are you reading now?
Would you recommend it?
And what’s next?

Funny you should ask. Tuesday, I started reading Peony in Love by Lisa See (2008) that I borrowed from my roommate.  That same day, I came home from the bookstore with Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund (2010), so I put aside the first book because this one looked so intriguing.  Wednesday (yesterday), I picked up Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund (2006), that was on hold for me at my library and also brought home Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg (2006) that I found among the bargain books -- well, I couldn't just not GET it, could I?  Four books in two days?  Yep, but I really want to keep reading Adam & Eve, that I wrote about here.


Would I recommend it?  Yes, so far I would definitely recommend it.  What's next?  I'll go back to Peony in Love, since I got 28 pages into it on Tuesday (and since it is borrowed from a friend).  That will be followed by Can't Wait to Get to Heaven because I "can't wait" to enjoy Fannie Flagg's humor again.  Then I'd better read that library book:  Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, that I wrote about here.


Being an overachiever (can't you tell?), that's twice as many titles in the queue as we were asked for. To top that, I'm also reading two or three (or four?) nonfiction books that I'll continue to plug away at until I finish them.

Library Loot ~ September 7-13

Abundance : A Novel of Marie Antoinette ~ by Sena Jeter Naslund, 2006

Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas — eager to be a good wife and strong queen — she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror."

Having noticed this novel when I looked up information on Naslund's Adam & Eve for Tuesday's post, I put it on hold at my library.  Years ago, I reviewed The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, and I'm still interested in her life.

Library Loot is a weekly meme co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.  Marg has the Mister Linky this week, if you'd like to share a list of the loot you brought home.

Bookstore Booty

Adam & Eve ~ by Sena Jeter Naslund, 2010.
I managed to buy only this one book at the bookstore today.  Dust jacket summary:

Hours before his untimely — and highly suspicious — death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.

Devastated by Thom's death, Lucy keeps the secret, but Thom's friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the foundation of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions . . . and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it.

Midway through the daring journey, Lucy's small plane goes down on a slip of verdant land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. Blessed with youth, beauty, and an unsettling innocence, Adam gently tends to Lucy's wounds, and in this quiet, solitary paradise, a bond between the unlikely pair grows. Ultimately, Lucy and Adam forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization, where members of an ultraconservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.

Set against the searing debate between evolutionists and creationists, this novel expands the definition of a "sacred book," and suggests that true madness lies in wars and violence fueled by all religious literalism and intolerance.

I've already read five chapters and am really enjoying this book so far.

Being honest — for the love of books

Three-and-a-half years ago, the unofficial leader of my Thursday writers group gave us homework:  to write a poem using the rhyming pattern of Robert Frost's

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

It rhymes like this:

A
A
B
A
B
B
C
B
C
C
D
C
D
D
D
D

I'm not a poet, but here's what I wrote.

For the Love of Books

A book arrived in Monday’s mail;
It’s still a manuscript, this tale,
Which comes to me from friend, not foe.
She did not ask me to curtail
My thinking pow’r nor wit, although
I don’t think she’ll be all aglow
To hear the things I must disclose
About the lacks that we both know
It has. Ah, yes, I must compose
With care — or else our friendship goes.
I cannot simply hem and haw.
"Go burn this thing’s what I propose
Because it has a tragic flaw:
It’s made of nothing more than straw.
A publisher would just guffaw.
Yes, publishers would all guffaw."

I had forgotten this until last night, when I ran across the page I had printed out, showing what I posted on this blog.

Caturday ~ feed the fish

I've been so busy watching these fish that I forgot to feed them.  Would you mind feeding the koi for me?  Click the water to give them food.

Kiki Cat, signing off

(Oh, was yesterday Caturday?)

All wet

My daughters and 11-year-old granddaughter came over this afternoon, and this is where we spent most of three hours.  It's the first time I've been to the pool at my new apartment complex, and none of us thought to take pictures.  This photo, which was online, was taken near where we ate a late lunch before Cady and I went back in the water.  We couldn't talk the "old ladies" out of the shade, but Cady and I spent an hour or so tossing a football (that belonged to the daddy with his two little boys), trying to stand on our hands on the bottom of the pool with our feet up in the air, and splashing each other.  Yeah, an old grandma in her second childhood truly did jump in and splash her granddaughter.  My daughters eventually began "grading" how we tossed the ball, but those "tens" were hard to come by.  Besides being all wet (bad joke), I'm tired and my back is complaining.  I think I'll go lie down and read a book.

Beginning ~ in mid-flight

The Yokota Officers Club ~ by Sarah Bird, 2001, fiction (Japan)

On the map at the back of the pamphlet, Japan resembles a horned caterpillar rearing up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. My destination, the Ryukyu Islands, trails behind like a scatter of droppings. We've been in the air for seventeen hours.

My daughter handed me this book several years ago, after she read it, saying she really enjoyed it.  Looking for a novel to relieve my recent steady diet of nonfiction, I found this on top of a stack of unshelved books.  (I've moved at least twice since then.)  Now I'm curious.  What I quoted above isn't actually at the top of the first page, which is a letter from the White House.

Dear Dependents of the United States Air Force:
Welcome to your new duty assignment, Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.

Though the letter is not dated, it ends with "Your President and Commander in Chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson."  So I know I'm going back in time nearly fifty years.  So far, the book appears to have some humor.  This family with six children definitely needs humor.

This meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages. Share the first sentence or two of the book you are reading. Then, share your impressions of that beginning. Click this link to see what others say about the books they are reading this week.