Friday, November 2, 2018

GUEST POST ~ The Perfect Idiot by Frank Iodice

The Perfect Idiot by Frank Iodice



Title: The Perfect Idiot
Author: Frank Iodice
Genre: Fiction
Release Date: Winter 2019
List Price: TBA 
Publisher: Articoli Liberi
Synopsis: A Perfect Idiot is a poetic, tender novel. Odette is a six years old girl. She is living in a foster home in the south of France when she meets the narrator, a night custodian, and decides he should be her father. To look for him, Odette escapes with the help of an old Argentinian prostitute, Signorina Rosario Rossi, who has quite an original philosophy of life, and her ex-boyfriend, don Vito Palladino, an irreverent parish priest…

Frank Iodice created a series of marginal, eccentic characters trapped in a story full of delicate and yet bitter regrets.  With his sense of humor and his humanity, he was albe to help them find meaning in their unfulfilled lives.



Uno. 
Meli Montreux was always tired every morning she arrived. She gave me the impression that someone hadn't let her sleep. I imagined that a big hairy brute forced her to stay up all night. When she walked in, she sat down placing her chin on the palm of her hand. Her honest face, framed by her short, disheveled hair, didn't show the traces of violence that I found in the other social workers. It couldn't be described like any other face; probably it came very close to what I would call now perfection. Meli often wore long skirts with flowers, and smiled with her lips closed. 
Up there in Sospel we had a big black cat found on the street. That night, he was waiting for the fat from my ham; he stared at me from the sill of a window so low that it could also work as a door if you had long legs. I ate without looking outside and didn't share my ham with the cat. I didn't have the time because, a few days later, I died. 
On the hill across the way, there was the white building where the General lived. He was explaining to the cleaning woman how to wash his balcony, one tile at a time. The cypresses with a few branches out of place swayed, imitating the clouds. A beetle came in and began to beat against the wrong wall. It's going to end up killing itself, I thought. In the meantime, I listed the scenes I had seen in the previous days. 
I very much enjoyed making lists.

Uno. A mother thanks cars while crossing the street: her daughter imitates her and thanks the cars. Another mother doesn't thank the cars: her daughter imitates her and doesn't thank. Heredity of civility.
Due. The hairdresser complains about the stink from the public toilets. There's pee everywhere, she screams, but the pee is perfumed by anise, so that the hairdresser hopes no one has heard her.
Tre. This morning the girls were playing with the cat, which, at least apparently, didn't smile at them. From the back of the garden came the deep chirps of the blackbirds and the pleasant cold of the land. 
I liked the cat, too. Early in the morning, we were the only ones in the garden. We kept each other company while waiting for the others. I felt the calm of the green, old estate. The caretakers arrived at seven in the morning. On the weekend at seven-thirty. 
I was the custodian. I’ve always been a custodian. At night I was the only one to watch over the children. I brought books and sweets with me. I had been reading almost a book a day ever since my own childhood. As for the pastries, the kids and I ate them in secret, at least a couple each. The ones with a lot of cream were the hardest to hide. 
In that place on the edge of Nice, I could imagine the city any way I wanted because I didn't hear its noise. When I left in the morning, after my night shift, I felt my legs heavy and lazy. I had time to see details that, otherwise, I wouldn't have noticed: like the noise the hairdresser made when she placed nail polish in the window (the hairdresser was also the beautician of the town) the little bottles clattered against each other or hit the glass and made the same sound of pebbles on the beach, a liquid pleasing knocking. There was also the girl with the long neck, who left home with a bunch of flowers in her hand. She might have been the daughter of the florist, a woman with the same neck, whose shop was a little down the street, but I enjoyed imagining that she received a fresh bunch every evening, and that the next morning she passed them on to someone else.

‘A child who doesn’t read is a child who doesn’t dream.’
Articoli Liberi is based in the south of France. We are a nonprofit organization born to diffuse free books to schools all over the world. We distribute for free and we use the proceeds from the online sales to print extra copies. The objective is to join as more students as we can and pass down the importance of reading to the new generation.

We are a group of friends, all different from each other, but united by a unique big passion: reading. We believe that a book keeps in its pages the ideas of the person who wrote it, but also those of the person who reads and will speak about it. And for this exchange of ideas, we started exchanging books.
We decided to collaborate with Frank Iodice and publish his amazing novel because (as it was with his ‘Brief Dialogue on Happiness with Pepe Mujica’) it contains all the messages that we ourselves try to leave to the young: the importance of personal freedom; love for reading and for a simple life; rebellion against the modern politics of hate and obsessive competition.
‘A Perfect Idiot’ was originally published in Italian as ‘Un perfetto idiota’, by Edizioni Il Foglio, in February 2017. An excerpt from the first version of this translation project appeared in Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza, in July 2018. Then the author reworked the whole novel and turned it into a new novel, as he himself explained to us:

‘I had to change the structure of every sentence, cutting almost 50 pages in total. Many paragraphs from the original version simply didn’t work in English. So, I adapted my story to an English-speaker readership. And I must admit that I prefer it now. The story goes right where I want it to go’.

The English version will be distributed for free to schools (starting with a conference plan across France, Italy, and the UK50 copies to each school).

It will be also presented at the Writers Weekend, Augusta University, in March 2019, by the author and Giada Biasetti, one of the professors that collaborated on this wonderful project.
If you want to know more about our future encounters with the students or our nice books, follow us at articoliliberi.blog.

Diffusing books for free has turned out to be our vocation, but we constantly need your support if we want to succeed.


We are proud of the cover art. It was realized by Gary Taxali, an acclaimed, award-winning fine artist and illustrator, known for his retro stylized art in the realm of pop. Gary was glad to participate in our project and offered his terrific artwork wishing us the best with this mission. Find out more about Gary Taxali at garytaxali.com.


Frank Iodice is an Italian freelance journalist and writer. He is the author of numerous novels, like ‘La meccanica dei sentimenti’ (Eretica Edizioni 2018), ‘Matroneum’ (Il Foglio 2018), ‘Un perfetto idiota’ (Il Foglio 2017) and many more. 10.000 copies of his ‘Brief Dialogue on Happiness with Pepe Mujica’ have been distributed for free to French and Italian high schools.
He lives between Paris and Lyon.  His blog is frankiodice.it


Wednesday, October 31, 2018

CHOP IT UP: Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson


Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

So let’s summarize this three star read.  

Brown Girl in the Ring takes on a futuristic urban Toronto where the rich and wealthy have fled the inner city to keep away from the dangerous and troubled others.  This moves leaves the violent and murderous power over the city, in all their recklessly and unsympathetic glory.  To the determinant of the remaining downtrodden and disenfranchised innocents, they are stuck in the ugly walls and rules of the new Toronto.  

In enters Ti-Jeanne, a young mother grappling with newfound motherhood and living with a hyper-shamanistic grandmother.  Said shamanistic grandmother has roots deep in Caribbean traditions, including the kind geared toward wielding magic spells.  And it's Ti-Jeanne's grandmother who drills her on the importance of carrying on their family's cultural and magical traditions, as well as suffocating Ti-Jeanne with her overprotective and overburden concerns.

Unfortunately, despite showing innate abilities to communicate with Caribbean gods and goddess, Ti-Jeanne is reluctant to take part in her grandmother's beliefs.  Until Ti-Jeanne’s baby’s father comes seeking her help.  He works for a crime boss who shuttles drugs and harvests human organs for the rich and, having been caught sniffing some of the supplies, must now bring his boss a human heart fit for a politician looking for a transplant.  Though he's not a murderer, it's either the life of the transplant victim or his own. 

Suddenly Ti-Jeanne is forced to confront her family’s roots in servicing gods and goddesses to keep him, her baby, and her family protected from the organized evil knocking at their door.  And her family's connections to this evil runs much deeper than water.  It's all blood.


So first, what I did enjoy took place in the "inactive" areas of the book. Or the beginning’s relationship-heavy slices.

I loved the time Hopkinson’s spent in laying out Ti-Jeanne and her struggles as a character. Her being a mother was an issue. Her coming to terms with her walk-out mother was another. And, as well, she had issues with her baby’s father, Tony, who was back in her life. Hopkinson took care to spend time revisiting their past relationship as lovers. She also spent time going into its downfall due to Tony’s drug addiction. The issue of Ti-Jeanne not informing Tony how her baby was theirs complicated matters. And Tony himself was well-drawn, as he fought with loving Ti-Jeanne while working for a crime boss. And it's this boss who had him by the balls every step he took. So, needless to say, their drama had my undivided attention.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Final Book Raiding TBR Pick


A lucky surprise has fallen into my lap. Didn’t know about this book. Didn’t expect it. It came out a week or two after Shadow of the Tomb Raider itself. Ran into it at the bookstore. And there was no question regarding my purchase. It's a tie-in to the game, and not an exact novelization of the game. Basically, it covers the story between the events that happened after Lara removed the dagger from the Temple of the Moon (and of course survived the subsequent tsunami), and before her plane crashed into the jungle (with Jonah and Miguel). As I'm writing this I'm already 85 pages away from the end. AND I LOVE IT! Like, what other perfect way to end my October Book Reading TBR?



"In a brand-new adventure, Lara Croft must evade the agents of Trinity and discover an ancient secret. When a mysterious stranger offers to help Lara uncover a clue that could give her the upper hand, she embarks on an expedition to a system of caves in Colombia. However, once they learn of Lara's plans, Trinity will stop at nothing to reach the location first. Trinity believes they can turn the tables on Lara, but in the darkness of the underground caverns, there are terrors in the depths that neither Lara nor Trinity anticipated."

My October Reading Work is Done!

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

4 Reasons Why I Enjoyed the F Outta Kristen Britain's Green Rider ~ As a Below Average Reader of Fantasy Books (Though I Want to Improve That Average Desperately, Making This a Great Start)


"On her long journey home from school after a fight that will surely lead to her expulsion, Karigan G'ladheon ponders her uncertain future. As she trudges through the immense Green Cloak forest, her thoughts are interrupted by the clattering of hooves, as a galloping horse bursts from the woods.  
The rider is slumped over his mount's neck, impaled by two black-shafted arrows. As the young man lies dying on the road, he tells Karigan he is a Green Rider, one of the legendary messengers of the king of Sacoridia.  
Before he dies, he begs Karigan to deliver the “life and death” message he bears to King Zachary. When she reluctantly he agrees, he makes her swear on his sword to complete his mission, whispering with his dying breath, "Beware the shadow man...".  
Taking on the golden-winged horse brooch that is the symbol of the Green Riders, Karigan is swept into a world of deadly danger and complex magic, her life forever changed. Compelled by forces she cannot understand, Karigan is accompanied by the silent specter of the fallen messenger and hounded by dark beings bent on seeing that the message, and its reluctant carrier, never reach their destination."

There are times when a book's cover will just… well… summon you.  It'll be a book cover that commands you–from a bookshelf in some random bookstore–to buy and read it.  While this year I managed to find a small piece of territory in the science-fiction space opera sub-genre (bless your sweet ASS Tanya Huff for creating Torin Kerr), my itch for a strictly traditional fantasy book had yet to be fulfilled.  Until I saw a mass market copy of Kristen Britain Green Rider at my local Barnes & Noble, and immediately became enchanted and curious by its cover.  It was giving me T. A. Barron The Ancient One tease (my favorite fantasy book).  Ever hesitate from being burned before, I waited matters out.  And each visit it kept calling.  No.  Screaming actually.  

But 500 pages for a fantasy book takes determination and stamina for a reader like myself, so I needed it in the comfort of a hardback if I was going to take it on by the book's weight alone.  Ordered online.  Spent five days reading it (took a day off so it would've been four).  And it was a win!  For once, I got shit right for myself based solely off a cover.


Nevertheless, I’ve stated this before how I’m not that great at taking on fantasy novels.  Why?  Maintenance.  Upkeep.  And little much-needed reference materials to draw from as I delve into all these innovative and imaginative lanes authors have created for themselves and readers.  I always need just a little something extra to remain anchored into the story.  And I can say brevity on the exposition concerning world-building and magic systems is essential to my reading experience.  I guess that brevity is what separates the "epic" in "epic fantasy" from... well... I guess "fantasy."   Forgive my ineptitude on the subject, because Green Rider does away with all my fantasy-reading anxieties and here’s why...


"Karigan thought desperately.  She thought back to summer evenings in an empty warehouse on her father's estate where the cargo master practiced swordplay with her.  For one lesson, he left the wooden practice swords leaning against the wall and devoted the session to what she could do with her bare hands."
~~~~~~~~~~ 
"'I once asked her what she wanted to do with her life,' Rendle said.  'She told me, something adventurous.  She wanted to be a merchant like her father.  It is not many children who choose to follow their parents' footsteps.'" 
~~~~~~~~~~  
"She dreamed also of her mother's ring, which Jendara wore.  Sometimes she dreamed that her mother chastised her for her carelessness.  Other times, her mother held her in a warm embrace....  How did a simple schoolgirl ever get into such a mess?"
The quick backstory of the lead character, Karigan, is simple enough.  Her father created a successful shipping business out of nothing.  This put her family in the spectrum of influence and aristocracy, though they are humble and quiet living below their means.  Her mother died some years ago, leaving just Karigan and her father.  And, also, leaving Karigan with very little baggage about the loss to mull depressingly over.  To further her educational purposes, she went to an elite school where she was later suspended because she crossed a governor's son on the practice field.  A big no-no.

Friday, October 12, 2018

The Unfortunate DNF ~ The Ape Who Guards the Balance (Amelia Peabody Mystery #10) by Elizabeth Peters



Back home in London and far away from the tombs of Egypt, The Ape Who Guards the Balance begins with Amelia Peabody and her rambunctious son, Ramses, amidst a Women’s Social and Political Union protest.  Fighting for women’s rights to vote, Amelia is willing to chain herself to the fence surrounding 10 Downing Street in a demonstration fueled by anti-women suffrage.  When the protest turns sour, and a collection of protesters storm the Member of Parliament’s home while in disguise, matters turn extra curious when said member and his staff are found tied in the home with all of the MP's Egyptian antiques stolen.  Amelia immediately identifies this as the signature work of The Master Criminal named Sethos.  However, Sethos was thought to be dead (if I'm not mistaken his "death" took place in book #7, The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog).  

Yet, apparently, it appears he’s alive and working his way through a new system of antiques thievery and racketing.  And, as always, working new tricks at seeking love-lost revenge toward Amelia and her family–beginning with an abduction attempt on Amelia herself.  Fortunately, things don’t go as Sethos has planned.  So Amelia and her family follow through with their departure to Egypt in search of a permit to dig at a much sought-after digging site.  Of course Sethos hangs closely to the family all the way to Egypt to further his shenanigans.  And there goes the first portion of the book’s plot…

… the second and third portion follows the stories of Amelia’s son, Ramses, and his best friend, David acquiring an ancient scroll of the dead from an antiques dealer.  Of course, this move attaches trouble linking back to Amelia’s problems with Sethos.  Then the third portion of storytelling follows Amelia’s adopted daughter Nefret.  She sets about trailing after the boys (Ramses and David), as well as finding herself confronting her own problems.  Or some mess.  I lost interest in both stories, really.
....

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

CHOP IT UP: Stalking Ivory (Jade del Cameron #2) by Suzanne Arruda



Former World War I ambulance driver, Jade del Cameron, is on her second assignment inside the wild expanse of Africa.  As a writer and photographer of the travel magazine, The Traveler, Jade, with the company of her best friend and best friend’s husband, set up camp in British East African to capture photographs of the surrounding elephant population.  Unfortunately, while on assignment, her and her pals run across the bodies of a poached herd of elephants, as well as the body of an askari man, a soldier of the King’s African Rifles.  Closer investigations reveal the solider was murdered while in defense of the herd–whose tusks were all removed and stolen.  It’s a crime that sets a blaze of determination for justice within Jade.  And it leads her into the secular realms of poachers, possible German axis powers in the African forests, caches of weaponry, and more murders.


Monday, October 8, 2018

5 Reading Slump Killers ("with" Cynthia Bailey)


Every reader goes through this mess: you’ve finished a book (outstanding or awful) and can’t decide what to read next.  Or if you even want to follow up your reading so shortly.  So you ponder over what's your mood looking like–in concerns to your next choice in a book.  And sometimes that pondering goes on a little too long.  Sometimes... your decision gets clouded.  

After finishing a book, I usually take a day or two off from reading.  Sometimes that day or two sticks around a little longer.  And three days is always too long.  Then it begins to sting when I have four bookshelves riddled with unread titles glaring at me wondering what the hell I‘m doing sitting around without a book in hand.  One shelf wants to be chosen.  One book desperately wants to be elected.  And I just sit there like a chump biting my lip and as indecisive as ever.  Something has blocked me from reading.  My mood?  Energy?  Maybe solicitude from my last book?  All I know is days are ticking by and I can't seem to find a dang thing I want to read and it's pissing me off.



It's a reading slump indeed. 

So I, like many book bloggers, decided to create another remedy post for readers who need to get through a reading slump.  And if one method listed doesn't work, another one always will.  So let's go!


1.  GET ORGANIZED

Hell, I’ve learned long ago how throwing away and getting rid of old junk kills some spectrum of my anxiety.  There’s this sort of alleviating transference I get from donating old clothes; alongside tossing pay stubs, art supplies, and old birthday cards into trash bags.  Seriously, when miscellany leaves happiness circulates within the soul.  

So one method that often helps me pull out of a reading slump is getting my shelves organized.  By “getting organized” I mean going to a shelf to pull unread titles off to compile what I haven‘t read and how long its been hanging around–and deciding what should hang around.  Something about pulling unread books off, piling them up, and actually looking at them helps get me centered.  It’s revisiting titles long acquired that at one point I was excited.  That is until time and other books caused my enthusiasm to slip by, before deciding what's next for said title.  And, naturally, the benefit is I find myself donating piles of unread and clutter-clogging books after a change in interests.
  

This method allows me to focus on the now.  Not the then and not the later.  We hate to admit it, but there is a level of anxiety and agitation we get from being book lovers who simply can't read and take every book with us throughout life.  Heck, I would even equate books to friendships: they have their seasons, chile.  And only the most trustworthy, loyal and respectful can stay.  Oh, and enriching.  Never keep something around that doesn't enrich your life.

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