Tuesday Intros -- Villa America

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

I lucked upon this book in the library -- Villa America by Liza Klaussmann.
When I picked it up to read the inside cover, an American couple from New York move their family to the South of France and become part of the elite group of the Hemingways, Fitzgeralds and Picasso. Say no more! I'm in.
Here's the intro:

The sky was as blue as a robin's egg on the afternoon they pulled Owen Chambers's body out of the  Baie des Anges. It had taken three days before they could reach him -- spring tides off the coast of Antibes, a lack of proper equipment -- and he was almost unrecognizable when he was finally recovered, seaweed wending its way through his tangled blond hair. 

I'm definitely intrigued. I hope I enjoy.
Looking forward to finding other books that everyone is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- The Sisters of Versailles

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm reading The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie as part of France Book Tours. I'm not sure yet when I'll be reviewing it, but sometime between Aug. 31 and Sept. 9.
As I started the book, I thought the language was a bit blah, but the historical novel has really sucked me in.
Here's the intro:

Hortense

Paris

1799

We are five sisters and four became mistresses of our king. Only I escaped his arms but that was my choice: I may be eighty-four years old, and all that I speak of may have happened in the far distance of the past, but in a woman vanity is eternal. So I need to tell you: I could have. Had I wanted.
Because he - the king - he certainly wanted.
I'm not speaking of the last king, our sixteenth Louis, poor hapless man dead these six years on the guillotine, followed by his Austrian wife. No, here I talk of the fifteenth Louis, a magnificent king. I knew him when he was fresh and young, no hint of the debauched libertine that he would become in his later years, with his drooping eyes and sallow skin, his lips wet with lust.

What do you think? The book becomes available on Sept. 1.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- Bluebonnets for Elly

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Today, I'm featuring a book by a fellow blogger, Bluebonnets for Elly by Sandra Nachlinger. I'm not usually a romance reader, but who can't use a little romance in their lives?
Here's the intro:

If I can just make it to the gate, no one will suspect.Elly pulled the yellow plastic hood over her head and tucked in a stray red curl. Her feet planted on the golf cart's floorboard, she turned the key, shifted the cart into forward, and floored the accelerator. With a look over her shoulder, she sped out of the carport and onto Bluebonnet Lane. 

Sounds like there's more excitement than romance going on here. I'm looking forward to reading it.
The author, Sandra Nachlinger, blogs at Writing With a Texas Twang. This is the first book I've read by her.

I can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- Missoula

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
Mostly, I read fiction, but I've always loved Jon Krakauer's gritty journalism-type writing in Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven, so when I heard about his latest book, Missoula Rape and the

Justice System in a College Town, I figured I should read it. I also have a book idea that I'm playing with that has to do with rape, well a woman who decides to make a difference in the world by eradicating rape, so reading Krakauer's book is like doing research
Here's the intro:

Office Solutions & Services, a Missoula office-products company, didn't have its 2011 Christmas party until January 6, 2012. As a counterpoint to the chilly Montana evening, the staff decorated the place in a Hawaiian motif. Around 9:00 p.m., thirty or forty people -- employees and their families, mostly -- were chatting, playing party games, and sipping beverages from red plastic cups in a room overlooking the parking lot when a shiny Chrysler 300 sedan pulled up and rolled to a stop in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, attracting the attention of the revelers. Two well-dressed men with dour expressions got out of the vehicle and stood beside it. "It was a really nice black car," recalls Kevin Huguet, the owner of Office Solutions. 

 I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- Oh! You Pretty Things

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

I picked this up at the library because the cover looked so appealing. Oh! You Pretty Things by Shanna Mahin is about a woman in Hollywood, trying to make it big, and her relationship with her mother, a failed actress. Here's the intro:

A few hours before I quit my job, I'm stuck at the light on Rose and Pacific, watching a string of kids wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the name of their preschool -- "Blackberry Atelier" -- as they cross the dirty asphalt. Harried teachers urge them onward while supermodel-beautiful moms in Fred Segal sweatpants bring up the rear, tapping urgently on their cell phones. 

I like the sound of this irreverent, detailed scene.
I'll look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros - Dorothy Parker Drank Here

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I found this latest book by Ellen Meister at the library. I'd previously read and enjoyed The Other Life and Farewell Dorothy Parker by Meister. Of course, who doesn't love the bon mots of Dorothy

Parker. In her previous Parker novel, and this one, the idea is that Parker haunts the Algonquin Hotel where she and other authors hung out. In this book,the quipping Parker is mixed with a likeable television show assistant producer who's about to lose her job and a washed-up author who is dying of an operable brain tumor because he feels guilty about cheating on his long-ago wife. I'm really enjoying the book.
Here's the intro:

1967
Death was like a bowl of soup.
At least that's how it felt to Dorothy Parker. One minute she was aware of a terrible pain radiating from the middle of her chest, and the next she was floating in a warm, brothy bath, where everything around her hovered at the same temperature as her body. She couldn't tell where she began and the world left off.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

Tuesday Intros -- The Unpredictable Consequences of Love

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I have a book I'm saving for my trip to France, which is only 10 days away! I had to order Jill Mansell's The Unpredictable Consequences of Love from the UK because it is still not available in the U.S. Mansell is a perfect vacation read, a British chic lit novel. I plan to open it on the plane.

Here's the intro:

In the high-ceilinged drawing room of the Mariscombe House Hotel, Sophie Wells was putting the finishing touches to the setting for the photo shoot.
The original plan, to photograph the Ropers outside and en famille in Marks and Spenceresque summer meadow, had been scuppered by the abysmal weather. The rain had been hammering down all morning and there was no way of postponing the event, as two members of the family were flying back to Australia tomorrow.

But Emma Roper knew exactly what she wanted. On the phone earlier she'd said, "OK, if we can't be outside, we'll have one of those all-white shoots instead. You know, all modern and cool. And we'll all wear white too. It'll be like one of those Boden ads." Delighted with herself and her artistic vision, she'd announced, "So that's sorted. We'll see you at the hotel at three. It'll be great!"

Sounds like Sophie has a job that throws her together with insufferable, posh people. I look forward to digging into it.
I look forward to finding other good book ideas from everyone on Tuesday Intros.

Tuesday Intros -- From the Fifteenth District

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
This week I'm reading a book for FranceBookTours and I'll have the full review on Sunday, Jan. 11. From the Fifteenth District by Mavis Gallant is literary fiction, short stories, set mostly along the Cote d'Azur of France, near Italy.
Here's the intro.

The school Carmela attended for much of six years was founded by Dr. Barnes, a foreigner who had no better use for his money. It had two classrooms, with varnished desks nailed to the floor, and steel lockers imported from England, and a playing field in which stray dogs collected. A sepia picture of the founder reading a book hung near a likeness of Mussolini. The two frames were identical, which showed the importance of Dr. Barnes -- at least in Castel Vittorio. Over their heads the King rode horseback, wearing all his medals. To one side, somewhat adrift on the same wall was the Sacred Heart. After Carmela was twelve and too old to bother with school anymore, she forgot all the history and geography she'd learned, but she remembered the men in their brown frames, and Jesus with His heart on fire. She left home that year, just after Easter, and came down to the Ligurian coast between Ventimiglia and Bordighera. She was to live with Mr. and Mrs. Unwin now, to cook and clean and take care of their twin daughters. Tessa and Clare were the children's names; Carmela pronounced them easily. The Unwins owned a small printing press, and as there was a large Anglo-American colony in that part of the world they never lacked for trade. They furnished letterhead stationery, circulars, and announcements for libraries, consulates, Anglican churches, and the British Legion -- some printed, some run off the mimeograph machine. Mr. Unwin was also a part-time real-estate agent. They lived in a villa on top of a bald hill. Because of a chronic water shortage, nothing would grow except cactus. An electric pump would have helped the matter, but the Unwins were too poor to have one put in. Mrs. Unwin worked with her husband in the printing office when she felt well enough. She was the victim of fierce headaches caused by pollen, sunshine and strong perfumes.. The Unwins had had a cook, a char, and a nanny for the children, but when Carmela joined the household they dismissed the last of the three; the first two had been gone for over a year now. From the kitchen one could look down a slope into a garden where flowering trees and shrubs sent gusts of scent across to torment Mrs. Unwin, and leaves and petals to litter her cactus bed. An American woman called "the Marchessa" lived there. Mrs. Unwin thought of her as an enemy -- someone who deliberately grew flowers for the discomfort they created.

I look forward to seeing what you are reading.

Saturday Snapshot -- New Year Celebration

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs.

Isn't it funny, all the separate holidays that we have based on religion or culture, but New Year's Eve is one that we all can celebrate around the world, of course, at different times depending on our time zone. And yes, I know that some cultures have separate calendars so different new years, like the Chinese, but really, all around the world we celebrate on Dec. 31 as a new year begins.
I like being united with everyone.
We had a terrific party at my friend Sheila's house. She throws the best parties whether New Years or Fourth of July.
Here are a couple of pictures of us celebrating.
Tracie brought cut outs attached to sticks so that we could do silly pictures.

That's Tracie in the middle. She's a librarian and comes up with all kinds of clever ideas. Janine on the right is one of the women who hiked the Appalachian Trail with me. 

Laura on the left has a son close to Spencer's age. They were best friends for a while, united in their love for basketball. 

Here's a group picture, a groupie, of a bunch of us just after midnight. Sheila's 16-year-old is photobombing us in the very back.

And after the clock struck midnight, we decided we needed to dance. I love the expression on Pam's face, on the right. She looks so sassy. We were waving our fingers at Dan who was taking pictures. All except for Sheila in the back who didn't realize we were posing.

I hope everyone else had a fun-filled New Year's Eve and I hope the coming year is just as filled with laughter and dancing for all of  you as I had at Sheila's party.