Around the World with Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis

Synopsis:  Narrated by Mame’s fictional deadpan nephew, Around the World with Auntie Mame takes readers on a first-rate if not always first-class voyage to intriguing locales around the world—including Paris, London, and Lebanon. Setting sail aboard the Normandie, Mame soon finds herself pursued by Interpol and rescued from semi-nudity by a pack of Irish wolfhounds. Next, Mame’s antics lead her to a gunrunning ship on the eve of World War II, causing luxury accommodations to be forfeited for the sake of action. But not to worry—she doesn’t rough it for long. If you thought her Manhattan parties were superb, you’ll want to put yourself on the guest list for her splashy Venice bash featured in this equally tipsy and titillating romp.


When I turned 50 three years ago, my father blessed me with a memory. He remembered reading Around the World with Auntie Mame to my mother when she was in labor with me.  So of course I had to read it.  The story is told as a series of vignettes as Patrick tells his wife Pegeen of his crazy adventures with his Auntie Mame while they are waiting and  have been waiting for many many months in hopes she will return their son for Christmas.  Mame had a habit of throwing money around and jumping from the fire pan into the fire and escaping to do so again in another country.  I made it about 2/3rds of the way through Mame's madcap travels before I couldn't take it anymore and just skipped to the end.  It's full of the type of hilarity and stupidity and slap stick humor that just makes me nervous, but if you like that type of thing, you'll enjoy it.
 
Released:  Originally released 1958
Pages:  322
Setting: London, Venice, Austria, etc
Challenge: Dusty book
Rating: 2
YTD: 3

Monthly Mix up Mania

April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2015

I came across a wonderful and really fun looking challenge hosted by Gina of Book Dragon's Lair and other bloggers called Monthly Mix-up Mania. The goal is to read a book for each letter of each month in the year which is a total of 74 books if you do it right.  I'm in. Will have a permanent link up the linkbar 

Guidelines:
1) only one letter per book
2) books can be moved around if it fits better somewhere else after you've read it
the letter doesn't have to be the first word, just the first letter of a word in the title (a, an, and the do not count)
3) reviews aren't necessary but a quick "I read for letter... it was about... I did/not like it" would be nice and can be left in the comments.

January (7)

J
A
N
U
A
R
Y

February (8)

F
E
B
R
U
A
R
Y

March (5)

M
A
R
C
H

April (5)

A 
P
R
I
L

May (3)

M
A
Y

June (4)

J 
U
N
E

July (4)

J
U
L
Y

August (6)

A
U
G
U
S
T

September (9)

S
E
P
T
E
M
B
E
R

October (7)

O
C
T
O
B
E
R

November (8)

N
O
V
E
M
B
E
R

December (8)

D
E
C
E
M
B
E
R

Sunday Salon: Finding the groove

Life:  Whether you are right about the weather or writing about the weather, change is hard.  We eased back into lessons this past week with a minimum of fuss. However, we are still working out the kinks on timing and James desire to do everything on his own and when it's time for a supervisory review.   I told him to look at it like a job - he can either stop at a certain reasonable time every day for his supervisor (me)  to review his work or we can stipulate Friday as review day.  We tried the latter this week and it leaves a bit to be desired as we were a bit cranky at the end of the long week.  He's a teenager - nuff said.   How many more years to go?  Concentrating on my one word - Grace.

ROW80: Writing and reading wise,  spending my mornings getting into a study, reading, and writing mode.  The goal is to write daily - whether it's journaling, blogging or working on wip.  I wrote everyday except for one day this week.  I'm loving the Write Brain workbook and had a lot of fun with the exercise Far Far Away in which you think of a person who really bugs or annoys you, and then think of a place you'd like to send this person.  Then -mentally--send them there.   With that in mind. start with - The post card arrived......   (Just a hint, an unhappy acquaintance who is not happy unless they have something to complain about).  Did I accomplish all my goals this week. Alas not since life happens so carrying goal over to this week:

1)  WIP: Review draft of Eyes in the Ashes, re-evaluate and detail what needs to be done. Have partial 3rd edit completed.
2)  Craft Study:  Complete chapter 1 exercises of The Writer's Journey and apply them to main characters of Eyes.
3)  ROW80 participants - visit all the two's.
4)  Morning pages:  continue with Jesus calling and Write Brain workbook.

Reading:  This week I finished Around the World with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis which was mediocre  and the first book in The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith which was quite interesting.  I'll be posting my reviews Monday and Friday.  I'm still reading Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing and Brett Battles Sick about an evil scientist and a nasty population killing virus. Pulling down from the dusty shelf to read Across the Universe by Beth Revis and Genesis by Bernard Beckett.  Seems I'm doing the A to Z challenge after all.

52 BOOKS: It's book week 3 already and highlighting Pierre Berton, Canadian non fiction author who died in 2004.  Check out the video of his life which is quite informative.

Came across a really neat challenge by Gina at Book Dragon's lair which will begin in April and run for two years: Monthly Mix up Mania in which you read a book for each letter for each month of the year.  Sounds like fun. 

What are you reading this week? 

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Synopsis:  Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price.... 


Back in the 80's when I was sucking up science fiction and fantasy like there was no tomorrow, don't know how I missed reading Neuromancer.  But I did and realized probably wouldn't have appreciated it so much back then.  It isn't an easy read as it is an intellectual, physics laden, crime ridden, computer geeks acid trip that is complex and multilayered.  It's not a quick read by any means so be prepared to spend some time in the world of cybertech.  

The book is said to have given The Wachowski brother the basis for the movie, The Matrix.  I'll have to watch it and see how it compares to the book.  Neuromancer is currently being adapted for a movie and is still in preproduction and supposedly will be ready in 2014.  It will be interesting to see if they can capture the essence of the book.


Released: Aug 15, 1986
Pages:  288
Setting: Japan primarily
Challenge: Canada
Rating: 4 - Excellent
YTD: 2

The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips

Christi Phillips

Back Cover synopsis:  1618. A beautiful young courtesan writes a secret letter to the Venetian Council warning of a Spanish plot to overthrow the Republic, thereby endangering both herself and her lover.  Who was the mysterious Alessandra Rossetti and why did she choose such a perilous path?

Today.  PhD candidate Claire Donovan races to locate the documents that will finally reveal the motives of this woman whom history forgot. As she searches the ancient city of Venice, she too falls under it's spell.





When Alessandra finds herself practically penniless when her benefactor and lover dies, shes accepts the offer of Venice's most beautiful and classy courtesan, La Celestia, to train her in the arts of love. She captures the attention of some high ranking men which puts her in the position to learn about their political deceptions.  Meanwhile in the present day, Claire Donovan is struggling to complete her doctoral thesis and discovers a writer is presenting a paper in Venice on the same subject.  She really doesn't want to have to scrap her thesis and start all over again. She can't afford the trip so when the opportunity comes up with chaperone a 16 year old to Venice, she accepts.  

The Rossetti Letter would have worked well solely as a historical fiction novel with the world of politics and the courtesan creating quite an intriguing story.  However, Christi Phillips does a beautiful job of blending together two time frames mixing seventeenth-century Venice with the present day and pulling you deep into the story.  I was completely fascinating with the story and look forward to reading Phillips next story continuing with Claire Donovan - The Devlin Diary. 


Released:  Feb 19, 2008 
Pages:  438
Setting: Venice, Italy 
Challenge: Dusty Books / Continental
Rating: 4 - Excellent
YTD: 1

New Year, New Round of 80 Words!

Jan 7th is the start of ROW80 for 2013 and long story short for those who aren't familiar with A Round of Words in 80 Days.  It is the brain child of author Kait Nolan which is a goal setting writing challenge which runs in 4 rounds, each 80 days. The purpose is to set goals which are measurable and if you need to change them because it just isn't working. 

Last year, I kind of fell off the wagon with my goals and happy to have a fresh start. I already mentioned my goals for the year here and now I'm ready to start breaking them down into manageable weekly objectives.

My goal is to write daily even when I'm not actively working on a first draft so not going with a specific word count for this week.   Doing a modified morning pages / journaling  utilizing Sarah Young's Jesus Calling and exercises from The Write Brain Workbook by Bonnie Neubauer.   The first is thought provoking and the latter has been fun as I'm enjoying the creative writing exercises.

Took a break from my WIP Eyes in the Ashes for a while so will be rereading in it's entirety and make notes on what needs to be done.

Finished reading Chapter one of The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler this morning and will be working on the questions on page 97 - Questioning the Journey and applying them to my main character in Eyes. 

Will determine a blog schedule, whether going to go with 3 or 4 set days, post it in my sidebar and stick to it. 

I'm going to try a rotating schedule with visiting fellow rowers similar to Kait's method for the sponsors.  This week I'll visit all the ones, next week two's,  and blah, blah, blah.  Connecting with everyone is an important part of the whole process and last year when everything sort of fell by the wayside for the last two rounds, I really missed the camaraderie.  

I can't keep up with checking in and commenting on everyone's posts twice a week, so will be doing a ROW post on Sundays, Wednesday's will check in on facebook page,  but I will be visiting  and comment throughout the week.   

Fresh start, fresh group so be sure to stop by and say hi to everyone here

Sunday Salon: Grace

 

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved 

is that of overcoming self.  ~ Francis of Assisi

Last year I stumbled across One Word and OneWord365 and then throughout the year kept coming across writers and bloggers talking about their one word.  Kind of thought it interesting, but hokey at the time. The concept of focusing and working on embracing one word the whole year.   I couldn't even fathom narrowing the things I needed to focus on in life down to one word.  But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  After all, I had decided to write deliberately the last two years, then this year changed it to writing mindfully.   I thought about going with patience but you know what happens when you pray for patience. God starts throwing all this stuff at you to prove you already had the patience to begin with. 

I finally narrowed it down to grace.  What is Grace?   Grace is kindness. Grace is empathy. Grace is unconditional love. Grace is so many things.  I realized that I needed to work on having Grace - with myself, with James, with hubby.   You see I handle things in a certain way.  Whenever there is a problem, you figure out how to handle it, discuss it and then let it go.  Letting it go is the important part of this scenario. I don't like holding on to things.  Lesson learned, let's forget it and move on.  I've gotten quite good at that over the years.  And it seems the things I dislike the most, God likes to put in my path.  Both my guys - they are wired exactly the same. They never forget a thing, like to analyze stuff, plus they are very verbal  They have a need to talk about it and talk about it and rehash and discuss until they work it out - eventually.  James is now 13 and along with becoming a teenage is all the angst and emotions and uproar that goes along with it.  

Remember that old commercial way back when "Calgone take me away."   Sorry, doesn't work here.  I can't change them or their temperament,  it's how they are.  I can however, change me and how I respond.  Grace will be the key this year.  For myself, my guys and those in our lives.     

Happy New Year!