Mailbox Monday, Sept 5

Seen both at Mailbox Monday (hosted in September at Amused By Books) and The Story Siren, my Mailbox Monday/In My Mailbox on a don't-want-summer-to-end Sunday.   Read any of these?  What did you get?


For Review



Ragnarok: The End of the Gods (Canongate Myths #16) by A.S. Byatt
Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

Purchased/Swapped




Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Comments

  1. AmySeptember 4, 2011 at 9:21 AM

    Wow, you got some great books there, Audra! I have an old copy of Catherine the Great by Massie, can't wait to hear your thoughts!

    Enjoy your new reads and have a great holiday weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. FrancesSeptember 4, 2011 at 9:23 AM

    Coveting your Ragnarok and Angela Carter!

    ReplyDelete
  3. pickySeptember 4, 2011 at 10:02 AM

    I am super curious about Ragnarok. It's on NetGalley, and I keep considering requesting it. Let me know what you think.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HollySeptember 4, 2011 at 11:28 AM

    I really want the Catherine the Great book but I'm trying to talk myself out of it. I see all these non-fiction books I think I'd really like and then I end up reading nothing but fiction all the time and never get to them :(

    Suite Francaise is on my to read list this year too. Enjoy all your books!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ZibileeSeptember 4, 2011 at 12:20 PM

    Lots of amazing things there. I am excited about the Catherine the Great book and also by the Byatt. I have a whole collection of Carter's short fiction and am excited to make time for it soon. I hope that you enjoy all your new reads and that they all excite you!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AudraSeptember 4, 2011 at 12:41 PM

    @Amy: I'm really looking forward to it -- Catherine is one of those figures I've always been fascinated by! Hope you're enjoying your weekend, too!

    @Frances: I am, too! ;) Reading Ragnarok now and it's good!

    @Picky: I really love the Canongate myth series and this fits in so well. I was telling a friend that Byatt really expertly catches that sensation of being young and reading something so imaginative it takes over your waking thoughts.

    @Holly: It's a massive book so I think it won't be a fast read but I feel you on the non-fic -- fic is definitely easier for me to pick up and finish!

    @Heather: I love Carter so much -- really excited to read this one (someday, someday)...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Melissa @ Confessions of an Avid ReaderSeptember 4, 2011 at 12:51 PM

    Lots of great books! I have a few on my wish list.

    Is the Catherine the Great book non-fiction?

    ReplyDelete
  8. ElysiumSeptember 4, 2011 at 2:38 PM

    I've really wanted to read the Catherine the Great book. Haven't read any of his books but I've heard good about those.

    ReplyDelete
  9. BlodeueddSeptember 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM

    enjoy! :D
    I liked Shiver

    ReplyDelete
  10. Col (Col Reads)September 4, 2011 at 4:24 PM

    I would totally pick up the Carter just for the gorgeous cover! I hope it's as awesome inside as it is outside!

    ReplyDelete
  11. bermudaonionSeptember 4, 2011 at 5:09 PM

    Most of your titles are new to me, but Waiting for Robert Capa has piqued my interest. I hope they're all winners!

    ReplyDelete
  12. SusieBookworm (Susanna)September 4, 2011 at 5:21 PM

    Ragnarok looks great! Though my experience with the story is more from Ignatius Donnelly's weird theories regarding it than from the Norse tale.

    ReplyDelete
  13. JessieSeptember 5, 2011 at 1:50 AM

    Ok. Ridiculous how awesome this (and every haul of yours!) is!

    Review copies of Ragnarok? AND Massie's Catherine the Great?

    Amazing.

    Shades of Milk and Honey is one of those "must read before I die" books for me. Shiver is also up there for books I'd like to read soon.
    Nicely done!

    ReplyDelete
  14. LauraSeptember 5, 2011 at 9:00 AM

    I have Nights at the Circus but I haven't read it yet. Your new books all look very exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  15. vvb32 readsSeptember 5, 2011 at 10:35 AM

    i'm being drawn to nights at the circus. happy reading.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Jenny QSeptember 5, 2011 at 12:41 PM

    I'm jealous of Catherine the Great! Looks so good!

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2011 at 7:27 PM

    I got Waiting for Robert Capa too and I am very excited to read it!

    ReplyDelete
  18. LuSeptember 6, 2011 at 5:25 AM

    Great mailbox! Enjoy :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. SerenaSeptember 6, 2011 at 8:25 AM

    Looks like a great list of books. I'll look forward to your comments about Catherine the Great!

    ReplyDelete
  20. AmySeptember 6, 2011 at 5:06 PM

    Ooooh wow, you have some great looking/sounding books here! I'm especially besotted with the A.S. Byatt, Shades of Milk and Honey and Nights at the Circus oh and Seven Gothic Tales!

    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnnaSeptember 7, 2011 at 2:24 PM

    You certainly had a great week in books! Serena gave me Suite Francaise ages ago but for some reason, I still haven't read it. Happy reading!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weekend Reads, or readathon-ing it...

Image
Busy weekends upon us, including this one. School open houses, playdates, and birthday parties. Spending time outside, enjoying New England fall when it's not an icy, rainy deluge.

But Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon is tomorrow, and as always, I've signed up in hopes of getting some good reading in. I've a string of books more than half read, and I'd love to finish them during the readathon.

I'm hoping I'll finish up Tarot for Troubled Times, which has given me so much to chew over and freshened up my tarot practice; as well as the absolutely emotionally gripping This Is How You Lose the Time War, which I'm both listening to and reading. It's deeply romantic and wonderfully fantastic, and the language is so good that after I hear the amazing audiobook readers do a chapter or two, I go back and read them to savor. And to my surprise, I'm going to be reading Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet. I&#…
Read more

Chilling Effecty by Valerie Valdes

Image
Before she could shoot, a familiar voice boomed from the loudspeakers. "Attend me, worthless muck-eaters. I have come to your inferior outpost to apprehend the human captain Eva the Innocent!"

I erroneously described this as Firefly with a lesbian Mal; but I was only wrong about our main character's sexual identity (pansexual, maybe?). Otherwise, this marvelously fun comedic sci fi takes the best part of shows like Firefly, with a charming crew and a "curmudgeonly" "anti-hero" captain (who is both adorable and heroic), and injects welcome imagination into the ragtag-posse-take-on-enormous-challenges plot line.

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes
Harper Voyager, 2019
Copy from publisher for blog tour

Captain Eva Innocente loves her ship, La Sirena Negra, and her work: running cargo and passengers around the universe. The book opens with Eva struggling to recapture her most recent order -- a passel of psychic cats -- and so, by page 3, I was literally enam…
Read more

Interview with Susan Higginbotham

Image
I am so excited to share my interview with novelist Susan Higginbotham. Although she might be most well known for her novels set in the UK, she's started exploring 19th-century America in her more recent books, including her newest, The First Lady and the Rebel. It's the gripping story of Abraham Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and her beloved sister Emily, as they find themselves at the opposite ends of the Civil War. My review comes on Thursday but prepare for major squees. I loved this book!

What was the plot of your very first piece of fiction?

Because I've been writing since I was a child, I can't remember, but I can tell you that it likely had something to do with cats. My first attempt at a historical novel, however, was when I was in junior high and started to write a novel about a family of orphans living through the Blitz. (Clearly, given the current vogue for World War II novels, I was way ahead of my time.) It didn't have much plot, as I recall,…
Read more

To Join the Lost by Seth Steinzor

Image
Title:To Join the Lost
Author: Seth Steinzor

Genre: Poetry (Contemporary / Hell / Current Events / Politics / Social Commentary / Satire)
Publisher/Publication Date: Antrim House (5/1/2010)
Source:TLC Book Tours

Rating: Okay, to liked (at moments) and eh (at other moments)
Did I finish?: I did, in about three days!
One-sentence summary: A middle-aged agnostic-Jewish-Buddist American travels to Hell with Dante.
Reading Challenges:Fearless Poetry

Do I like the cover?: Actually, I rather do -- it kind of fits the feel of Steinzor's writing style!

First line: Midway through my life's journey, I found myself/lost in a dark place, a tangle of hanging/vines or cables or branches -- so dark! -- festooning/larger solid looming walls or/trucks or rocks or rubble, and strange stapes/moving through the mist, silent or/howling, scuffling through the uneven dirt or/dropping from the blotchy sky like/thicker clouds, so close sometimes I ducked in/fright so that they never quite touched me.

Did... I ve…
Read more