!!!!!!

Exciting news Shopaholic fans!

Inspiration

I'm in need of some help!

I went to buy the new Danielle Steel book Big Girl this weekend but my attention was stolen by another book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert. Having never read Eat, Love, Pray, I was persuaded to put down my much anticipated Danielle Steel and buy Committed, and now I'm REALLY regretting it!!!

I'm only about 1/4 way through and I don't want to keep reading, but my pride won't let me put it down.

I was expecting a novel, and instead it seems to be a history lesson so far... can anyone tell me if it gets better or not??

The Red Tent

Happy Saturday everyone!!

Today I finished a book that I bought over two months ago and was sitting on my shelf until earlier this week. Something that is almost unheard of for me!

Today I finished The Red Tent, and I wish I had read it the second I bought it two months ago.

I was first turned onto this book by my Auntie Cara who is a midwife. With the main character being a midwife by trade, she had read it and loved it. My second recommendation came from my friend Achieng who loves to read as much as I do, and she was inspired by the religious undertones.

I don't want to give away too much about the story since it is what drives the characters forward and inspires the reader, but what I will say is the struggles the main character faces will inspire you and make you feel like you can do anything and survive anything.

Please pick up this book today and give it a read, it has my seal of approval!

Oprah's Book Club

I'm not sure about you guys, but Im officially OVER Oprah's Book Club selections!!

I've been loosely following Oprah's selections since she started the club in 1996, and have had lots of hits of misses. And while at my previously mentioned trip to Value Village on a book pilgrimage, I picked up She's Come Undone. I don't dislike the book exactly, but I am not enjoying it. But I refuse to stop reading it on principle alone!!!

Has this ever happened to you guys? I've only ever stopped reading one book ever (For Whom the Bell Tolls) and it still irks me to this day, but I just can't do it!

Anyway, I refuse to stop reading, so as I trudge through the last half of the book, I'll let you know some of Oprah's selections that I've been impressed with in the past so you don't have to be condemned to the same fate as me. Here we are, in no particular order:

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Hidden Gem

Dear Blog

Seeing as it is a new year, I thought I would share with you one of my greatest kept secrets of 2009: my secret garden of book stores, Value Village.

As a collector of books, there is no better used-book store (in my opinion) than this. Books range from $1.49-$3.99 with children's books only $0.99. On top of that, all books are buy four, get one free!

And they've got it all. Harlequin to mystery, fiction to war stories with turnover being high so there is always a new selection.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, 25 is my year of travel. That being said, I'm going on another beach vacation this spring break and that called for some good ol' fashioned chick lit for the plane and beach.

So on Tuesday I headed to the Value Village on Pembina and spent over an hour going through the shelves. They had SO many good books!

I quickly filled my arms with books that I wanted for my trip, but realized I had eight... so why not grab two more for free!

I'm glad I decided to give it another look because the two books I found were books that I had leant out and never got back (The Thornbirds and a Million Little Pieces). I was so excited to have them back again, and even more excited when I got to the till.

The cashier took one look at the 10 books in my arms and the seven people in line behind me and made the (much appreciated) decision to speed up the process by charging me the minimum for each book!!

I was so happy as I walked to my car, having paid under $15 for 10 books to add to my collection.

And this, dear blog, is the end of my tale of my secret-book-buying-weapon known as Value Village. But please use your new found power for good, not evil (aka buying all the good books before I get there).

Melanie

Attention book lovers!

Chapters has joined onto the Facebook bandwagon and now has their own group page. While this is not exciting in itself (they're joining a little late in the game), what IS exciting is that they are offering a 25% off coupon for any single item if you become a fan of their page!

Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/ChaptersIndigo?ref=ts

Enjoy!

You know your a loser when....

Your christmas list is more than half books!

And of course by loser, I mean an awesome person :)

Vacation Reading

I've declared that 25 will be my year of travel and so far I'm off to a good start!

I worked hard all summer and won a contest at work where I got to go on a 1 week all inclusive trip to Jamaica and it was amazing!! Unfortunately, I had to read some books for school on that trip but never fear, I have two more trips lined up!!

Next up, I have a week long trip to London, England booked leaving on boxing day, and after that another week long trip to Cancun for Red River's first official spring break! And you know what that means right?? Lots of "fun" reading for me! (and by fun reading I mean reading that I have not been told i have to do)

I'm especially excited for London since it will have the longest flight time and I LOVE to read on planes, it makes time go by so fast! Plus if you scroll down, you'll see I have some amazing books on my christmas list that I can't wait to start reading them.

And isn't it fun to look at your old books and remember where you were when you were reading them?

When I got back from Jamaica and opened George and Rue a tiny bit of sand fell out, and I was instantly transported back to the beautiful beaches that I had called home for a week. Sigh. Is there anything better than days and days of nothing-ness where reading is your top priority?


And in case you were wondering, the answer is no :)

Twitter

3 posts in one day? Boy are you guys lucky :)

Today in our PR class we're doing a "Twitter Tutorial" and had to follow ten new people that are not in our class, so I figured I would like to add my favourite authors!! But wait... I can't find any! And by any I of course mean the last few authors I've blogged about :) I can't find Nora Roberts, Dan Brown or Marian Keyes. What gives.

I thought twitter would be the perfect outlet for those who deal mainly with words, but I guess I was wrong. If you guys know of any other authors that DO have twitter, let me know please!

So Excited!!! New Marian Keyes!!!!

As you can tell with all the exclamation marks in my title, I have very exciting news for you... Marian Keyes has a new book out! Released on November 3rd of this year, The Brightest Star in the Sky promises to build upon such classics as Watermelon and Last Chance Saloon with the girly "chic-lit" humour Keyes is famous for. I can't wait to get my hands on this book and it's currently sitting at the top of my christmas list! Dec. 25th can't come fast enough...

Title: The Brightest Star in the Sky
Author: Marian Keyes
Price: Currently 30% off at Chapters for $16.80
From the back cover:

Welcome to 66 Star Street . . .

In the top-floor flat lives music exec Katie. She spends her days fighting off has-been rock stars and wondering how much cheesecake you'd need to eat yourself to death.

Below her, a pair of muscular Poles share with a streetwise cabbie named Lydia, who has a sharp tongue, an even sharper brain but some unexpected soft spots.

On the first floor is Fionn - a gardener who prefers the company of parsnips to people. But he looks like a fairy-tale prince and when he's offered his own television show, he's suddenly thrust into the limelight.

And at the bottom of the house live Matt and Maeve, who are Very Much In Love and who stave off despair by doing random acts of kindness.

But a mysterious visitor has just landed at 66 Star Street, bringing love, friendship and heartbreak, and a new-found optimism. Old secrets are working their way to the surface and all their lives are about to change in the most unexpected of ways . . .

Book Review: The Gargoyle

Hidden deep within tales of disfigurement, gothic horror, and medieval lore lies a beautiful love story that spans over 700 years. “The Gargoyle,” a haunting debut novel by Andrew Davidson, explores the relationship between the caustic, unnamed narrator struggling with addiction and his saviour, a wild-haired schizophrenic sculptor named Marianne Engel.


The novel opens with a graphic description of our narrator, a successful pornographer out of control on drugs, as he swerves his car to avoid a hallucinatory onslaught of burning arrows and slams through a guardrail and over a cliff. The explosion that follows sets his body on fire with a “snap, crackle and pop” and he describes “the bubbling of my skin as the flames kissed it.” He wakes in an ICU burn unit disfigured beyond recognition with a “snake inhabiting each inch of my spine,” looking like the gargoyle from the book’s title


After being kept in a coma for seven weeks with “a machine clicking off the sluggish metronome of my heart,” he speaks of being “wrapped in my deadflesh body bag” after being sheeted with cadaver skin. His caustic humour provides a well needed break during the stomach-wrenching pages that describe the attempts to save his life. Doctors repeatedly cave away his “broiled flesh” through a series of painful medical procedures even using maggots to remove his charred flesh.


His recovery is painful beyond belief as his emotional recovery as our narrator realizes he has lost everything: his fortune, his skin and his career. “The irony was not lost upon me that after making all my money in the skin trade, I was now trading all my money for skin.” The only thing that keeps him going are his dreams of committing suicide on the day of his release.


But an odd visitor appears suddenly with “curls so alluring that they looked as if they would swallow your hand if you were lucky enough to run your fingers through them” that will propel the novel forward for the next 400 pages: Marianne Engel enters his room and insists that they were lovers in 14th century Germany.


This declaration sets the tone for the novel as we are plunged into two distinct love stories: that of our narrator and Marianne in the current day, and that of their previous life together 700 years ago.


As the narrator recovers and eventually leaves the hospital, Marianne reveals these stories as her relationship with the narrator strengthens. He takes a leap of faith and begins to believe these stories as they ease his pain and make him believe in a future for himself again. This is the main idea behind The Gargoyle: that the man who has been consumed by fire finally finds a woman to melt his heart and he begins to fall in love with her. “Being burned was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought you. Only after my skin was burned away did I finally become able to feel” he reveals in a moment of self reflection.


Marianne remains mysterious throughout the novel and her sanity is often in question. She sleeps naked on stone slabs in the basement of her castle-like house as she prepares to carve gargoyles out of them, “the gargoyles inside tell me what I need to do to free them...It’s like I’m digging a survivor out from underneath the avalanche to time.” But it remains no coincidence that she remains devoted to this man so passionately and unconditionally as it is revealed through her stories: he remains the key to her release.


The stories Marianne tells take us from from Japanese feudal lords to fighting Vikings and are all woven around the story of their own romance back in the 1300’s when she was a nun at Engelthal Monastery and he was a highly-trained mercenary. These stories are filled with common themes vastly ranging from sweeping cliffs to delicious feasts to Dante’s Inferno. And, like Dante before him, our narrator will visit Hades in his final quest for love.


As an avid reader, I instantly fell in love with the characters in The Gargoyle. They are so fully developed that I found myself cheering for them in their low moments and even shedding tears for them as their stories are completed. The main characters are also generously supported by a varied cast that have constant appearances throughout the book.


Also apparent throughout the book is the evidence that Davidson has done considerable research on burn victims as he spare us no detail on the medical treatments our narrator receives or the physical therapy he goes through during his recovery. And the details in his fascinating stories of the past show extensive and as we learn at the end of the book in the Special Features section, were based on his own travels and seven years of research on such websites as vikinganswerlady.com.


I enjoyed every minute i spent reading this book. The imagery presented is breathtaking and Davidson has proven himself to be a heartfelt, skilled storyteller. He shifted seamlessly from past to present and presented these two stories perfectly as one. The fantasy found in such elements as gargoyles and mystic visions were presented alongside realistic details and medical terminology in perfect balance. To me The Gargoyle in uncategorizable as it stands alone as an epic novel that will cause you to get lost in its pages, immersed in the stories or these two star-crossed lovers. The only negative is that the story had to end.

Hahahahahahah

I love watching Kenny vs Spenny and I recently saw this episode and it made me laugh so hard. The competition is "Who's the best rapper" and Spenny does a 'clean' one with some funny book references. The whole thing is funny if you want to watch it, but the good stuff starts at the 2:17 mark and it's about one minute long. Take a look!

Update

I chose The Gargoyle! I'm only on page ten but I'll keep you posted on my progress...

I need your help!

For our Canadian Literature class we have to do a book review and I can't decided which one to read! I've narrowed it down to the books below, but can't decide. Has anyone read any of these books?? Any opinions?

The Handmaid's Tale

I have to admit, It's been awhile since I've felt this strongly about a book, and I don't mean that in a good way!

On a recent vacation, I grudgingly accepted that I would have to read my school assigned novels and not my shiny new Dan Brown book that's been sitting neglected on my bookshelf.

So on a sunny day in Negril I pulled out Handmaid's Tale and with a double Amaretto sour in my hand, began to read. But I couldn't even get through the first couple pages before I was bored! (And no, not because of the Amaretto, it was in fact my first drink of the day).

So I tried again and again and yet again throughout the trip, and not until about 1/3 of the way into my trip did I begin to WANT to read it. It was so slow moving, I didn't know what was going on and the main character was a drag! I was way more interested in her racy best friend!

But finally I pieced together what was happening and began to enjoy myself. I even read for four straight hours on the place ride home.

I only had about 30 pages left when I returned to school on Monday and actually read the final pages in a work-period class. It went something like this:

30 pages left: Discover that this is the last page, and that the other 29 were just mysterious filler.

After reading last sentence: A yell of rage escapes my throat and I physically throw the book onto the floor!

Classmates: Looking on confused.

I COULD NOT believe that after going through so much effort to get into this book and finally (grudgingly) letting myself fall for its charms it reverted back to its opening paragraphs and truly disappointed me.

I can't really tell you more than that without ruining the ending of the book, and I know a few of my classmates haven't finished it yet. But come on Margaret Atwood!! unless you've secretly written a sequel that I don't know about, then you've got an angry/disappointed/aggressively frustrated reader on your hands.

I'm Sorry

Dear blog

I want to extend to you my most heartfelt apologies for ignoring you these past few weeks. I know it’s cliché, but it’s not you, it’s me.

Intense schooling combined with a weeklong vacation have led me to take your kindness for granted. I will work hard to regain your trust and promise to update you regularly. I know one day you’ll be able to forgive me and until then I am patiently yours.

All my love
Melanie

Twenties Girl - Sophie Kinsella

Has anyone one read this book yet?? Thoughts??

I'm always the last to know....

As a fierce critic of every book-to-movie I've ever seen, the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons are right up there in my top ten fav's!

So how is it that I didn't know he had a new book, The Lost Symbol?? And I mean I had NO idea. One of my friends randomly called me to tell me she saw a new book at Chapters by Dan Brown, and I just chalked it up to a re-release or something silly like that.

But I happened to be on my laptop when she called, so I headed over to my trusty Yahoo homepage and typed in "Dan Brown new book."

There WAS a new book, and not only that, it had sold over one million copies on the first day!!

Alright, my rant is over. But, dear followers (yes, all 5 of you), feel free to let me know whenever you hear/see a new book you think I might be interested in.

Melanie

The Lovely Bones

Everywhere I go these days I've been hearing about the Lovely Bones, and I hate to admit it, but I'm feeling possessive!

I first read this book about five years ago when I saw it's bright blue cover calling out to me from the shelf at Chapters. I took it home that night, curled up in bed and opened my new baby, holding it just right so I didn’t crease the pages. I finished the book the next day and was officially in love (although for the first few chapters of the book I wondered if I was brave enough to keep reading).

Wanting to share my new discovery, I leant it to my mom for her trip to Mexico. Since she loves to read as well, I was excited for her report when she got home. “What kind of book did you give me to read!” she cried, “I sat there on the beach with tears streaming down my face!”

I was pretty surprised at her response, and when I dug deeper I discovered that she never made it past the first few pages (let’s just say they include details about the rape and murder of a little girl by a serial killer… not for everybody). I made her take the book back and keep reading. She loved it of course.

I’ve always thought of myself as its greatest promoter, its one true solemate. So imagine my surprise when I sat down in the theaters waiting for my feature presentation, and without warning, am bombarded with images that seemed oddly familiar.

“What movie is this?” I whispered to my friend beside me, “Why do I know this.” Halfway through I realized I hadn’t seen it before, but read it before. They made a Lovely Bones movie. My secret is out.

Is it wrong of me to want to keep this to myself? Even if it is, I have no choice since a glance at the Chapters website names it in the top five Heather’s Picks of all time. And when my friend called me to ask me if “I’d heard of this book called the Lovely Bones”, I knew my fight was over.

I've thrown in the towel, waved my white flag and opened my door to change, so join me in celebrating one of “Melanie’s Picks” and let’s start our countdown to one of this winters soon-to-be greatest movies… t-minus 92 days and counting!