Book Launch Tour: The Vesuvius Isotope, by Kristen Elise, Ph.D.

I'm taking part in a blog tour for the release of The Vesuvius Isotope, a new thriller by drug discovery biologist Kristen Elise, over at my other blog, Musings of a Palaeolinguist.

All the posts on Kristen's blog tour are related in some way to the content of her new novel.  Click to read about "The Crocodile Library of Tebtunis"!

You didn't know I had another blog?  It's about archaeology and linguistics and stuff... go see ;)

The Vesuvius Isotope:
When her Nobel laureate husband is murdered, biologist Katrina Stone can no longer ignore the secrecy that increasingly pervaded his behavior in recent weeks. Her search for answers leads to a two-thousand-year-old medical mystery and the esoteric life of one of history’s most enigmatic women. Following the trail forged by her late husband, Katrina must separate truth from legend as she chases medicine from ancient Italy and Egypt to a clandestine modern-day war. Her quest will reveal a legacy of greed and murder and resurrect an ancient plague, introducing it into the twenty-first century.

Kristen Elise, Ph.D. is a drug discovery biologist and the author of The Vesuvius Isotope. She lives in San Diego,  California, with her husband, stepson, and three canine children. Please visit her websites at  ww.kristenelisephd.com and www.murderlab.com. The Vesuvius Isotope is available in both print  www.kristenelisephd.com and www.amazon.com) and e-book formats (www.amazon.com for Kindle, www.barnesandnoble.com for Nook, www.kobo.com for Kobo reader.) 

Book Review: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell

I picked this book up at Blackwells in Oxford last month when I was craving some more fiction in my life.  I have a bad habit of neglecting fiction because I feel guilty spending my time reading if I'm not contributing to some sort of knowledge growth for some reason.  Too much student-ing I guess.

But the front cover of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet caught my eye as I'm interested in Japanese culture (I've studied Japanese since my teen years and have been to Japan a couple times), and I recognise David Mitchell's name but have never read The Cloud Atlas or any other of his books before.  I have to say I really enjoyed it, but my feelings about this book is about as complex as his list of characters!

The book takes place at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, on Dejima, a Dutch trading post on an artificial island off Nagasaki.  It follows a number of characters, namely Jacob de Zoet, a young pious Dutchman working with the trading company to prove and make a name for himself so that when he returns home he can be accepted by his love's family and win her hand.  However, on Dejima he falls in love with a young medical student, a Japanese midwife with a scarred face named Aibagawa Orito.

A map of Dejima, the 17th century artificial
island built by merchants

The story is rich and further in becomes truly epic, which I didn't at first expect.  What I was most suprised about was the sheer number of characters in the story.  It is written from the point of view of a number of them as the story transitions, as well.  I stuggled to keep track of who was who, and gave up a few times - there are character lists at the back, which indicates how truly numerous they are.

This story contained cultural elements from historical Japan, Holland, and Britain, and for that reason it added another dimension of 'cognitive skill' to get through as well.  The characters' language is rich with references to items and concepts that are foreign both in time and space, and it was sometimes a bit frustrating to read on knowing that you weren't completely understanding the richness the author obviously knew more about through his obviously extensive research.  Mitchell had lived in Japan when he was young, and very skillfully takes you to 18th century Japan, with sights, smells, images - but doesn't slow much to explain them all.  My Japanese was good enough to understand phrases used in the book, but I still felt a bit lost in certain circumstances when you just had to accept that there was some richer meaning that a 17th century Japanese, or Dutch, person would have understood much better.

My biggest criticism of the book is related to this - Mitchell introduces characters to the story at an alarming rate, and often all at once, whose names are difficult to pronounce and hard to remember.  While it makes for realistic and believable situations, the reader (or I, anyways) became frustrated at the lack of hand-holding to point to who was saying what.  Often speech was said and not marked - and when five or so new characters are talking, my brain just couldn't handle who was who - the frustration becoming heightened, when all of those characters in turn became important to the story in some way or another.

Dejima is a real, and you can visit it if you're ever
in the Nagasaki area!

But the plot was truly epic, and enjoyable.  The characters were dynamic and believable, and interesting.  The imagery was great as well, and Mitchell illustrated his story in my mind beautifully.  It was a long and complex book, but a fantastic ride.  And even though it was fiction, I was learning about 18th century botany, medicine, and international trade and politics at the same time!

I'd rate this book 4 out of 5 stars - thoroughly enjoyable but definitely not an 'easy read'!

February Giveaway! Win a Harry Potter bookshelf Necklace and Book Earrings

Happy February!

And as promised, I'm doing another giveaway for the month of February!  This time I'm giving away one of my newest bookshelf necklaces, which is Harry Potter themed!  Also included in the grand prize is a pair of matching book stud earrings.

And there's another chance to win - the runner up will win a pair of the book earrings as well!

The giveaway will run until February 27th, and I will announce the winner on February 28th.

There are 6 different ways to enter - use them in the Rafflecopter Giveaway widget below!  (If you are already doing one of the options, then click it anyway :))

There's also a special option - if you have a blog and you make a post about Coryographies and my jewellery, linking to my blog and my Etsy page, with a few photos of my jewellery thrown in, you get 5 entries!  Click on the option after your post is made, and then leave a comment with a link on this blog post so that it's valid :)

You can also keep Tweeting the giveaway up to once a day, for another entry each time.  Since this giveaway will be running for all of February, it's a good way to get loads of entries!

Good luck everyone!  Feel free to share the contest with your friends :)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

A History of Bookshelves

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

I found a really interesting blog post in The Paris Review about the history of bookshelves.  Books weren't always stored vertically with their spines outwards...

Sometimes the pages of the book were painted so as to be recognised

"The first spine with printing dates from 1535, and it was then that books began to spin into the position we’re familiar with."   Read the article

Christmas Gift Guide: Gifts for Book Lovers

I've sorted a collection of great gifts for those who love books and reading.  Enjoy!

English Poem tights by Zohara

I'm loving book purses at the moment.  This one is Sherlock Holmes, by SmartGirl.me

This Stack of Books Pullover is by LittleAtoms

These are very sweet bookends!  By DesignAtelierArticle

Make your Kindle look like a hardback!  By KleverCase

Sneaky stash boxes to hide things on the shelf by Eric Ervin Woodwork

Trim your tree with miniature books!  By Watermark Bindery

This pretty art print of a little bird on a stack of books is by ContemporaryEarthArt

So if you'd like to get me any of these I'd be quite happy!  Are any on your Christmas wish list?

Special Necklace: Breaking the Nexus

I was recently commissioned to do a special necklace for a giveaway by author Lindsay Avalon, for her upcoming debut paranormal romance novel, Breaking the Nexus (out today, 12/12/12, available to purchase on Amazon for Kindle or in paperback!).  You can visit her website here:  lindsayavalon.blogspot.com.  And, here's a synopsis:

Breaking the Nexus' cover

Throughout history, myths and legends of extraordinary creatures have been told and retold. Fantastic tales of demons and banshees, gryphons and dragons, and of course, magic. Stories that every child grows to learn are nothing more than fantasy…or are they?
Beyond the world you see lies a hidden realm, the Mythrian Realm, inhabited by all of the creatures you’ve been told are mere fiction. Only one thing lies between humans and the truth: the Nexus. A magical barrier erected millennia ago to separate the two realms, it has stood the test of time. Until now.
For Mythrian Sha Phoenix, magic is nothing new. But when she stumbles upon a portal on the verge of collapse, her fate will forever change. Pulled through the portal into the Human Realm, she lands in the middle of Detective Connor Flynn’s brutal murder scene. Soon it is obvious someone is using blood magic to try to bring down the Nexus. Together, Connor and Sha must work to unravel the secrets before the barrier falls and the realms collide.
The Nexus is breaking and all hell is about to unleash…literally.

And here's the necklace!:

I painted a continuation of the forest scene from the front cover, set in a bronze rectangular cabochon, and the blue pheonix (the series' symbol) is in the corner. It is strung on an 18" bronze chain.  Who will the lucky reciever of the prize be...?

The Sweet Bookshelf

Etsy shows me were the traffic to my shop is coming from, and I love checking it out because I end up finding blogs that have linked to me or posted one of my items!  More often than not I find a great blog I'll continue reading as well, and here is one of them!

The Sweet Bookshelf is a great blog of book reviews - tons of them are by self published authors which really interests me (when am I going to join the Kindle group of self-published novel fans??).  I saw my antique bookshelf necklace listed a few posts down as well so it looks like there's lots of goodies to find on this site :)  Run by Mary from Scotland, you'll like her clear friendly writing style - and so do tons of others, judging by the 500 readers (through google) I just joined!  I will be coming back to read soon...