Posts Tagged ‘love!’

Today I wrote a little guest post over at The Book Case in which I tease a portion of Nicole Krauss’ upcoming novel, Great House (a.k.a. the literary event everyone is holding their breaths over). I actually had the great honor of chatting with Krauss yesterday about the book for a feature I’ll write for the October issue of BookPage, celebrating the release of her third book, which certainly stoked the flames of my enthusiasm. If you’re jonesing for something to tide you over, pop over and check out my post, in which I speak rhapsodically about the wild excitement this book has inspired.

My first perfect read of the year!

Tony and I have been married for just over six months now, and I love my husband dearly.  But last week while reading The Blue Castle, I fell in love again.  With a book that starts like this, you can pretty much surmise that it was essentially love at first sight:

“If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different.  She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal.  But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.”

The Blue Castle is the story of Valancy Stirling, who at 29, is an old maid.  She lives with her overbearing mother and sniveling cousin and has a dull and oppressed existence.  Valancy is kept under thumb, constantly berated, and is perpetually holding her tongue.  She is only able to find solace in two things: the nature books of the reclusive author, John Foster, and the blue castle of her imagination, a place where her wildest dreams come true and romance is no longer an impossibility.  Valancy’s life changes the day she sneaks out to see a doctor (without first getting her family’s approval) and is diagnosed with a severe and untreatable heart condition that will likely kill her before the year is out.  This revelation spurs Valancy to overhaul her life and break out of her shell; she may not have done much with the first 29 years of her life, but Valancy soon learns that it’s never too late to learn how to live, and when she starts to cozy up to town recluse and possible bad-boy, Barney Snaith, she finds it may not even be too late for love!

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Ffantastic Mr. FForde

Forgive me, internet friends, but I have to do something I try very hard not to do: today, I’m gushing.  Why?  Because this morning I got to do a phone interview with Jasper Fforde!  I’m interviewing him for BookPage, and the interview will be posted on their site in January, so I can’t spill too many beans here, which I realize is horrifically cruel of me, but them’s the breaks.

I will say that I was super nervous up to (and including) dialing his phone number (British numbers look so weird!), but you’ll all be pleased to hear that I was the consummate professional and did not: a) hang up several times before finally going through with it like a 12-year-old girl; or b) propose matrimony.  And I only mentioned my über-fan status two or three times, and not in a scary way…  I had worried going in that I might not be able to keep up with someone as dazzlingly clever and charming as Mr. Fforde, but he was really very congenial and easy to talk to, and I think that all of my questions went over really well.  He was very candid and thoughtful, and it was so much fun to talk to one of my favorite authors about how he approaches writing as well as getting the inside scoop on some of the books.   We easily chatted for about an hour – one I would happily relive over and over again, because it just went by too quickly!

While there are plenty of authors I’d love to interview if given the chance, I think Jasper Fforde was the best possible person to kick things off with… and if I never get to interview another author again, well, this will be enough.  Having seen him speak a few times previously, I knew he was extremely gracious and articulate, and well, we all know how I feel about a man with an accent… but it was so nice to find him that way in a one-on-one scenario as well. Consider my author crush intensified by 10,000!  Sigh.  I hope the ladies at BookPage let me keep the tape recording of us chatting (and that Tony doesn’t “accidentally” run the Mini Cooper over it)…

So as not to be totally heartless, here are a few of the things that we discussed that will hopefully make my writeup in January (anything that doesn’t but is trivia-worthy, I promise to post here):

• Why did he feel it was time to branch out from the Thursday Next & NCD books?
• The importance of comedy in fiction
• Where the inspiration for Shades of Grey came from
• The joys of book tours
• Jasper gives some glimpses into the next Thursday Next book (slated for 2011 release!), and some of the books & well-loved characters he’s trying to cram in there
• Which Thursday Next book is his favorite thus far
• Why you should never visit Nashville on a Monday…

So much fun, guys!  I’m seriously on cloud nine right now (and wondering if I can swing a roadtrip to Atlanta on Jan 15 where Jasper will be doing a book signing and Q&A at the Buckhead Barnes & Noble.  P.S.  You should check and see whether he’s coming to a city near you!)!  Tell me, if you could interview one author, who would you pick?  Any authorial crushes I should know about?