Pemberley Ball: Library

To escape from the crowded dance floor some ladies enter the Pemberley library to peruse the titles Mr. Darcy has acquired in his vast book collection.

We find Lady Kitteredge exploring the room. Although at present, books are the least on her mind...

I am Lady Arabella Kitteredge and I am thoroughly pleased to be invited to this lovely event. I am from Devonshire originally but after the death of my beloved husband Lord Kitteredge I moved to Sussex and have lived there quite comfortably for 8 years. I am very much looking forward to meeting Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham at the ball, and thank you again for giving me an excuse to purchase a beautiful ball gown!

I hope that we have suitable weather for this event so that we can all arrive and get home safely. I thoroughly enjoy the company of others because I rarely have a chance to attend such an amazing event, this will be the highlight of my year. Please take care and your generosity is much appreciated.

~*~
Perhaps Lady Kitteredge will find what (who) she is looking for in the room down the hall. I hear some raucous laughter from the Drawing Room.

Meanwhile, for those still in the library take a look at this new release. You may want to consider it for your shelves...

First Impressions:
A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen
by Charlie Lovett
Amazon | Goodreads
Book lover and Austen enthusiast Sophie Collingwood has recently taken a job at an antiquarian bookshop in London when two different customers request a copy of the same obscure book: the second edition of Little Book of Allegories by Richard Mansfield. Their queries draw Sophie into a mystery that will cast doubt on the true authorship of Pride and Prejudice—and ultimately threaten Sophie’s life.

In a dual narrative that alternates between Sophie’s quest to uncover the truth—while choosing between two suitors—and a young Jane Austen’s touching friendship with the aging cleric Richard Mansfield, Lovett weaves a romantic, suspenseful, and utterly compelling novel about love in all its forms and the joys of a life lived in books.

~*~

Tom LeFroy
inspiration for Mr. Darcy
played by James McAvoy
Becoming Jane (2007)
Tom wants to know...

What book are you currently reading?

~*~
* image source: P&P silhouette, gown for Lady Arabella Kitteredge (aka Erika Messer from WS Momma Readers Nook), Tom LeFroy

~~- Pemberley Ball schedule -~~
next post: 6pm pst

Stacking the Shelves - 9.13.14

Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

~*~
Bought:

Jabberwocky: A Novel
by Daniel Coleman
-action, fantasy, alice in wonderland
GET yours: Amazon kindle version is currently $.99 until Sep 23
FYI: win this at Goodreads
For Review:

The Silent Sister
by Diane Chamberlain
-chick-lit, mystery, thriller
courtesy of Reading Group Gold of St. Martins
Thanks !
Amazon | Goodreads

First Impressions:
A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen
by Charlie Lovett
-historical, Jane Austen, mystery
courtesy of edelweiss
Thanks !
Amazon | Goodreads
Library:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell
-historical, Japan
Amazon | Goodreads
The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.

-----> finally going to start reading his works, although I did see Cloud Atlas and liked it

Dreaming about getting soon:

Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
-dystopia
Amazon | Goodreads
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

~*~
* some of these may be offered as giveaways within the next two months

* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

* per usual, check out the sidebar for my current giveaways offers

Stacking the Shelves - 6.22.13

Stacking the Shelves
hosted by Tynga's Reviews (details)
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

~*~
For Review:

Pirates and Prejudice
by Kara Louise
Just released: May 2013
courtesy of author
Thanks Kara!

The Bookman's Tale
by Charlie Lovett
courtesy of publisher
Thanks Rebecca and Jane!

The Queen's Vow:
A Novel of Isabella of Castile
by C.W. Gortner
courtesy of Queen's Vow tour
Thanks Amy!
~*~
From Powell's Indiespensable club package (details):
Powell's subscription club delivers the best new books, with special attention to independent publishers. Signed first editions. Inventive, original sets. Exclusive printings.... Every six weeks, another installment to read and admire.

Plus, every package is stocked with exciting surprises!

Doing a little backtracking. This is the first one (#37) I received.

The Death of Bees
by Lisa O'Donnell

The Illusion of Separateness
by Simon Van Booy (ARC)
~*~
* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

* per usual, check out the sidebar for my current giveaways offers