Teaser Tuesday 6.12.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm reading A Mercy by Toni Morrison. This beautifully written novel with multiple voices is set in the 1680s America. My teaser is from p. 46. Lina, a Native American servant in an Anglo-Dutch household, is puzzled when a blacksmith, a free man of African descent, arrives to the farm and looks her mistress straight in the eyes.

"An unfanthomable puzzle. Europes could calmly cut mothers down, blast old men in the face with muskets louder than moose calls, but were enraged if a not-Europe looked Europe in the eye. On the one hand they would torch your homes; on the other they would feed, nurse and bless you."

Today is Finland's Indenpendence Day. It's 94 years since Finland's Declaration of Independence. Happy birthday to my lovely country! :)

Teaser Tuesday 15.11.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm finally reading a book I have been wanting to read for a long time: Ash by Malinda Lo.

"When the memories came, Ash felt her heart constrict as if she were being bound by ropes so tight she would lose all breath. It hurt in a way she had never felt before, and she did not know how to make it stop." [p. 48]

Teaser Tuesday 1.11.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm finally reading a great classic I've meant to read for a very long time!

"Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded by the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicaple in him." [Moby Dick by Herman Melville, p. 42]

Teaser Tuesday 18.10.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I've been meaning to read something by Haruki Murakami for a long time and since reading The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto earlier this year I've been craving for more Japanese lit. Also, it's always nice to finally be in the mood for a book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for a long time. :) Thus, I'm reading Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.
My teaser is from page 18. The male narrator, who is in love with Sumire, and Sumire, who is about to fall in love with a married woman 17 years her senior, talk about Sumire needing time and experience to become a great writer, and Sumire admits that she does not have any sexual desire.

"I don't know where your sexual desire has gone," I said.
"Maybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip and forgotten to come home."

Teaser Tuesday 27.9.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

After reading The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh I chose to read another book set in India: Leela's Book by Alice Albinia. With the elephant-headed god Ganesh as one of the narrators and a story inspired by the Mahabharata but set in modern day Delhi, this promises to be an interesting read!

My teaser is from p. 26. Ganesh has just entered the story as a narrator and wants to introduce himself:

"I am Ganesh, elephant-headed god, misshapen son of Lord Shiva and Parvati; beheaded by my father for protecting my mother's honour; abusively given this flippant elephant replacement; too-long-term resident of Kailash, that icy and unfriendly mountain where my family chose to live; befriended only by my faithful Rat (divine vahana, godly mode of transport). I freely admit that my sworn enemy is Vyasa, pedestrian composer of India's too-long epic, a poem called the Mahabharata, every word of which I wrote.
Even as a very young elephant, I could feel words building up inside me, pressing against the end of my trunk, fighting to get out - and all at once I would lose control, as a great trumpeting, ear-popping tirade came shooting out into the air to disturb the concentration of that self-obsessed meditation hillock they called Kailash."

Teaser Tuesday 20.9.2011

It's been a while since I participated in Teaser Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I have read so many praising blog posts about Amitav Ghosh, especially about his historical saga Sea of Poppies and I've been meaning to read something by him for some time now. I even had Sea of Poppies home from the library once, but at that point did not get to reading it due to other more urgent reads. Then his earlier novel The Calcutta Chromosome, subtitled "a novel of fevers, delirium & discovery" started to intrigue me even more than Sea of Poppies and I decided to start my journey to Ghosh's novels from this earlier one published in 1996. This far I'm really enjoying my read. My teaser is from p. 22.

"He remembered it now - he had typed it in himself, just a few years ago.
Subject missing since August 21 1995, it said, last seen Calcutta, India."

ps. I added a 100 Things about Me -page to this blog. Take a look if you want to learn a few more things about me. :)

Teaser Tuesday 28.6.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My teaser comes from Annabel by Kathleen Winter.

"After the service, Jacinta, Treadway, the uncles and aunts and Thomasina moved to the font, and Reverend Taft asked the parents to name the child.
'Wayne,' Treadway said.
It's the last moment, Jacinta thought, of my daughter's existence." [p. 62]

Teaser Tuesday 21.6.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm reading Robert Fagles' wonderful translation of Homer's The Iliad. My teaser is from page 134.

"And Helen the radience of women answered Priam,
"I revere you so, dear father, dread you too-

if only death had pleased me then, grim death,

that day I followed your son to Troy, forsaking
my marriage bed, my kinsmen and my child,

my favorite, now full-grown,

and the lovely comradeship of women my own age.

Death never came, so now I can only waste away in tears.""

What are you reading?

Teaser Tuesday 12.4.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm reading The Tea Lords by Hella S. Haasse. This is the first book I've ever read by this famous Dutch author and I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. My teaser is from p. 54. Rudolf Kerkhoven arrives in the Dutch East Indies i.e. Java. The year is 1871.

"Never in his life had Rudolf felt such profound relief as when the Telanak dropped anchor in the roadstead of Batavia. The long sea voyage, so eagarly anticipated as a gripping adventure, had turned out to be exceedingly tedious: 107 1/2 days of being confined to the cramped spaces reserved for passangers on deck and in the midship, cheek by jowl by a motley assortment of individuals whom he could not imagine ever consorting with of his own free will."

Can you imagine over 100 days at sea?!

Teaser Tuesday 5.4.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from p. 23 of The Lost Kings by Bruno Hare.

"I was going to him in order to sell a collection of rare and beautiful watches so that I could follow the trail left by another, valued so far only by death. It felt marvellous."

Teaser Tuesday 15.3.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

Even though I was enjoying Alamut by Vladimir Bartol I started to feel I needed to read something completely different before going back to it. This often happens when I'm reading a long story. Alamut is only little less than 400 pages, but still I got impatient. I guess, it has to do with my having all too many unread books at home just now, what with going grazy at the book sales and all that! :) Well, I abandoned 11th-century Persia first for a 19th century boarding school for girls in Olivia by Dorothy Strachey and then continued with start of the 20th century Paris with The Other Side by Sandra Freeman (I will write more about both of these two soon) and now I'm reading one of my book sales finds, namely The White Garden by Stephanie Barron.

Stephanie Barron is actually known for her Jane Austen mysteries of which I have read 1 or 2 many years ago. The White Garden, however, is something quite different from those. Landscape designer Jo Bellamy finds a mysterious notebook in a garden shed in Sissinghurst Castle. The notebook seems to be written by Virginia Woolf. This quote is from page 86:

"Do you know when Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse?"
Jo shook her head.
"The day before your notebook starts - March twentyeight, 1941."

Teaser Tuesday 22.2.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm reading the great Slovenian classic Alamut by Vladimir Bartol. It is a historical novel set in 11th-century Persia and was originally written in 1938 as an allegory to fascism. The novel has been translated into many languages. It has even been inspiration for two video games! It is an adventure story, a love story, and most importantly a story of political extremism, but my teaser is a funny, little snippet from page 24:

On one of the riverside rocks lizards were sunning themselves. Their backs shone like emeralds.
"Look how pretty they are," Miriam said.
"Ugh, I can't stand them. They are vicious."
"Why?"
"They attack girls."
Miriam  and Sara both smiled.
"Who ever gave you that idea, child?"
Halima was afraid that she'd blurted out some inanity again, so she answered carefully.
"My former master told me, 'Watch out for boys! If they jump over the wall and break into the garden, run away from them, because they keep a lizard of a snake under their shirts and they'd let it loose to bite you.'"

I fear the story will soon get much more serious. Too bad I cannot read it in the original language, but the English translation seems to be excellent, very enjoyable to read.

Teaser Tuesday 25.1.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I've been terribly busy with both work and dancing this past week and will continue to be so for a few more weeks, so I'm afraid I will not be able to post as often as I would like to. I will try to get the remaining two parts of Going Grazy in the Books Sales posts up soon, though, and hopefully at least one or two reviews, too, but just in case I go a bit missing in action during the coming weeks, know that everything is just fine. I promise to be back posting more regularly after the two first weeks of February.

I finished reading Mark of the Lion, a historical mystery by Suzanne Arruda a few days ago. I liked the book, but that's all I'll say now, as it's one of the two books I hope to review soon. :) Mark of the Lion was not on my original list for the books I want to read for the Historical Fiction Challenge, but I think I'll count it towards the challenge as it surely qualifies for it.

After Mark of the Lion I started another challenge book: Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner. This book actually is on my list for this year's GLBT Challenge. :) All too often I read books that qualify for some challenge I'm participating, but that I have not listed in my book lists. Not that it matters really, but anyways. :) Grand Slam is a lesbian love triangle set in the world of professional tennis. As a huge fan of tennis, when I found out about this novel, I simply had to get it! However, about 1/4 down the story my inner jury is still out on the book. I love the tennis tid bits, but am undecided on some other aspects of the story. We'll see how it turns out. My teaser is from page 94. Lawyer-turned-realtor-turned "professional girlfriend" Stephanie Alexander's relationship with tennis champion Sydney Foster is not going smoothly:

"Sydney, I'm dead-tired and this is not open to discussion. You have two choices -put your clothes on and stay here or put your clothes on and go home."

What are you reading at the moment?

Teaser Tuesday 18.1.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm fast falling into the "read-too-many-books-at-once" trap this January. I would like to read all my library loans and my new acquisitions simultaneously! This means that while I'm still only 1/3 into Pinkerton's Sister I got impatient and wanted to read a shorter book before continuing with the junkster. I was in mood for a nice historical mystery with a likable and maybe a bit unconventional heroine. I seem to have found just such a book in Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda. I'm almost half way through this mystery set in 1919 in colonial Africa and enjoying the book very much. Young American Jade del Cameron, who rode an ambulance in the Great War and can kill a hyena with a clean shot, is rapidly becoming one of my favorite sleuths. :) My teaser is from page 67.  Jade has just suggested Lord Colridge that she would like to join a hunting party trying to eliminate a hyena problem.

"'You forget, sir, that I was raised out west. I'm accustomed to hunting.'
'We are not going after rabbits, Miss del Cameron,' he exclaimed with a snort.
'When I was sixteen, a mountain lion took some of our stock. We lost several lambs.'
'And I suppose your father took you along on the hunt, did he?'
Jade looked directly at the aristocrat until he felt the weight of those emerald eyes boring into him. She kept the tone of her voice very factual, careful to omit any trace of bragging. 'No, sir. My father was gone at the time. I took out that cat myself.'"

As Mark of the Lion is first in a series I'm already looking forward to reading more about Jade's adventures in the future.

Teaser Tuesday 4.1.2011

Last call to enter my giveaway! :) On Thursday, January 6, at noon my time (Eastern European Time = GMT + 2 hours) I will draw the winner's name from a hat. :) To enter click the button above and leave a comment on the giveaway post.

I'm on the look for the perfect design for A Book Blog of One's Own. :) The pink phase did not last long. This silvergray colourscheme feels better to me, but what do you think? I'd love to hear your comments.

Here's my Teaser Tuesday post for this week:

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My first teaser for 2011 is from Pinkerton's Sister by Peter Rushforth:

"The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old, I think, but she got old very fast. That was how the second paragraph of The Princess and the Goblin - one of the books Alice remembered best from childhood - started, and, though certainly never a sweet little creature (sweet!), Alice felt she was as one with Princess Irene when it came to getting older very fast. She was - she felt on the bad days - the cowering soul locked in a darkened room, a soul rotting from within, a withered thing." [p. 22]

Teaser Tuesday 21.12.2010

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

Last week I started enthusiastically reading Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope. It is the first of his Palliser novels and is set in the 1860s. After The Woman in White I craved for more Victorian fiction and thought Trollope would satisfy that craving. For ca. 150 pages he did, but then somehow I became tired of the story. I did not care much for one of the characters and found another one a bit irritating. In the end I gave up. Not for good, but for now. I wanted to read something else, something with more...something, almost anything really, after a chapter on fox hunting! I took a good look at my book piles and decided on Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. I'm only 50 pages into the book, but I'm liking what I've read this far. My teaser is from page 26 (little more than 2 sentences this time):

"Most of the teachers at St Anselm's will tell me I'm a genius. That I can do anything, be anything. That my potential is limitless and I should reach for the stars. Nathan is the only one who calls me dummkopf and tells me to practise the Sarabande in Bach's Lute Suite in E Minor five hundred times a night if that's what it takes to get it through my thick skull. And it's such a relief I could cry."

ps. There is still time to enter my giveaway. Click the button below to go to the giveaway post.

Teaser Tuesday 30.11.2010

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading. 

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

After I finished reading The Holy Machine, an interesting scifi novel by Chris Beckett, I was once again faced with the delightful problem of what to read next. :) I finally found my copy of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. (Is it a sign that one owns too many books, when the book you are looking for is actually on the book shelf and you still have trouble finding it??) I read the Finnish translation of The Women in White many years ago as a teenager, but I bought the original version last year in order to reread it in English. It's been so long since the first read that I don't remember any particulars about the plot, only that I liked the book a lot. And it seems that also this time around the story has got me hooked from the start! My teaser is from page 18.

"We set our faces towards London, and walked on together in the first still hour of the new  day -I, and this woman, whose name, whose character, whose story, whose objects in life, whose very presence by my side, at that moment, were fantomless mysteries to me. It was like a dream."

I've been browsing the net for info on 2011 reading challenges. I've already decided on joining the GLBT Challenge also for 2011. On Sunday I read a post about Alex and Joanna's One Two Theme! Challenge, which sounds like great fun and I immediately started pondering on different themes I would like to read books about. At the moment I have for example nuns and Egypt as my themes, but that may change yet. I'm not posting my "official" challenge posts until later.

Have you found any other interesting reading challenges for 2011?

Teaser Tuesday 23.11.2010

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.  
The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

 I finished reading The Small Hand, a ghost story by Susan Hill while in Vienna, Austria during the weekend. I returned home late last night and this morning tried to quickly find a "metro book" to read on my way to work. Sarabande by Marcus Fedder? I'm  1/3 down, but no, later. Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic? There was a very popular Frida Kahlo exhibition in Vienna that I did not see, but saw to queue outside the venue. No, not yet, don't feel like reading about her. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins? YES, but where on earth is my copy of the novel?? At this point I was getting a bit anxious not to miss my metro. I grabbed The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett from another of my bookselves and was out of the door in a few seconds.

 I did end up missing my metro, but it had nothing to do with the book. I had moved my watch forward what I believed to be an hour last night as Vienna and Helsinki are in different time zones. Actually my watch was not accurately in time and I left home just the crusial 3 minutes too late! :) The Holy Machine proved to be the right choice, though. It is a science fiction novel set in somewhere in the Balkans in a city state called Illyria, a radically rational and science-based society surrounded by a world where religious fundamentalism has become the norm. My teaser is from page 11. The leading characher George Simling tells us what his mother has had to witness before she came to Illyria:

"A sociologist called Carp confesses to questioning the institution of marriage, to defending homosexuals, to teaching the satanic doctrine of cultural relativity...
     The crowd explodes with rage."

I like reading science fiction every once in a while and this story looks really promising. So, if you'll excuse me, I'll retreat back to reading my book...

And, yes, the pictures are of Viennese Christmas lights. :)

Teaser Tuesday 26.10.2010

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My teaser today is from The PowerBook by Jeanette Winterson. It's been a while since I've read anything by Winterson, but what an amazing writer she is!

" Beyond time, beyond death, love is. Time and death cannot wear it away." [p. 110]

Teaser Tuesday 28.9.2010

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by LizB of Should Be Reading.
The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers

Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

My teaser is from page 45 of Tell It to the Bees by Fiona Shaw.

     "There was no more sleep to be had, but the morning was hard and unyielding, and Jean got up into it slowly, her limbs frighted with reluctance.
      As her body surfaced, Mrs. Sandringham's words came back to her and a wash of sadness ran across her, that it was only ever her own hands that caressed or cradled her."

What are you reading now?