24 Hour Readathon- Update #2

I finished a book! Start to finish! :)

I just finished up Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin.
It was a great book that follows up her previous book, The Happiness Project. There is a lot that I aspire to in my life and one of them to just be happy, where I am in the here and now. Her books help me realize that I do have a lot to be thankful for and happy about in my own life (including being able to partcipate in a readathon!) and strategies or ideas on how to create my own happiness project in order to better myself and help those around me. I highly recommend these two books.

And now, onto book #2....

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon!

It's hour 1 for the 24 hour readathon! Here's my introductory post:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Pittsburgh, PA. Hopefully the sun will come out and it'll get warm enough for me to read outside for part of the day :)
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
I actually haven't picked any books out yet- I'm in the middle of several books right now but they're all long books and I've noticed that I tend to feel more successful about the readathon if I pick short books so that I feel like I'm getting through them.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
I actually just had it- last night I prepped a crock-pot Apple and steel cut oats breakfast. It was my first time making it so it was actually in the crockpot too long and burnt a little- but still good!
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
This is the first time I've participated in the readathon while being pregnant- my husband and I currently pregnant with our first child, a little baby girl!
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'm going to try to start off at least with short books so I can read different things throughout the day and feel like I'm getting through a lot.

Clarissa Readalong Update #1

Hi everyone. A while back I signed up to join the month-long readalong for Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. The goal is to read this nearly million word tome in one month, April 2012.

I began a little late, I started around April 4th and I'm still only around page 130, out of the 1500 pages... One problem I have is that I don't want to carry it around with me. Not only would it make my bag to heavy but I think it might start to rip and fall apart if it's handled too much, so I try to read it at home when I have the chance.

However, I am thoroughly enjoying what I have read so far and even if it takes me a little longer than a month, or a few months, to finish, it will be well worth the effort.

Please head on over to aliteraryodyssey.blogspot.com for more details on the readalong and a wonderful blog in general. I will try to keep updating here with my progress and thoughts on Clarissa.



Harry Potter

It's time to celebrate! The Harry Potter series is now available in ebook format and can be purchased only at the pottermore store.I was worried they would be unreasonably priced, but i checked them out and the first three are $7.99, the last four are $9.99, or you can get the whole series for about $57. Not too bad. My husband and I are going on a cruise this summer so I think this will be perfect cruise reading- all the wonderful HP books without lugging them around :) Cheers!

Book Review: The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose

The Book of Lost Fragrances

By: M.J. Rose

ISBN-13: 9781451621303                       

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication date: 3/13/2012

Pages: 384

Source: I received a free copy of this book as part of the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour. This did not influence my review of the book in any way.

Synopsis:


A sweeping and suspenseful tale of secrets, intrigue, and lovers separated by time, all connected through the mystical qualities of a perfume created in the days of Cleopatra--and lost for 2,000 years.

Jac L'Etoile has always been haunted by the past, her memories infused with the exotic scents that she grew up surrounded by as the heir to a storied French perfume company. In order to flee the pain of those remembrances--and of her mother's suicide--she moved to America. Now, fourteen years later she and her brother have inherited the company along with it's financial problems. But when Robbie hints at an earth-shattering discovery in the family archives and then suddenly goes missing--leaving a dead body in his wake--Jac is plunged into a world she thought she'd left behind.

Back in Paris to investigate her brother's disappearance, Jac becomes haunted by the legend the House of L'Etoile has been espousing since 1799. Is there a scent that can unlock the mystery of reincarnation - or is it just another dream infused perfume?

The Book of Lost Fragrances fuses history, passion, and suspense, moving from Cleopatra's Egypt and the terrors of revolutionary France to Tibet's battle with China and the glamour of modern-day Paris. Jac's quest for the ancient perfume someone is willing to kill for becomes the key to understanding her own troubled past.

My Review:

I devoured this book in just about one day. It was easy to allow all of the sensory data, especially olfactory, to come wafting right out of the pages and entrance me. I think The Book of Lost Fragrances is a timeless story told in a new, wonderful way.

Jac is a woman who works to keep her emotions at bay and her past in the past, but when her brother discovers something within the family's failing business, it begins to engulf Jac completely and force to confront the present as well as near and distant past. Jac's extraordinary sense of smell leads her to notice what the average person doesn't, bringing her suffering as well as heightened experiences. Her family's problems take the reader on a sensational ride through history and the present, from America to Paris to Egypt to China.

I really enjoyed the levels of complexity and variety in this story. Through the emotions evoked from smell, we get to experience the lives several characters from different regions and time periods. Smell is the sense that most strongly activates memory in our brains. This fact is taken to an extreme in The Book of Lost Fragrances  when a certain perfume is able to allow people to recall past lives, not just their current past. M.J. Rose was able to bring together many fields of study: mythology, archaeology, the study of olfaction and perfumes to create emotions, and Buddhism. All of the separate fields coalesce into an imaginative and entertaining book.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars