Tindrliterate

Evening All,

Today's prompt for the bout of books read it on it is kind of weird for me anyway. You see we have to create a literary dating profile for our favorite literary character. And after spending today thinking about who is my favorite literary character, I could only come up with Edmund Dantes; you know the hot smoldering Revenge fueled guy from The Count of Monte Cristo, yeah him.

So for better or worse, swipe me?

Edmund Dantes
Loyal, Ruggedly Handsome, loves to keep things simple. Fall in lvoe with me and I'll tie the knot, literally, around your finger. Likes to play the long game, our relationship can take a long time running, I'm good at waiting for, and getting, what I want.

I am so sorry for any one of you who actually reads this! I gotta do each challenge man!

Until Tomorrow!

XoXo
BrainyHeroine

#ShelfieOrHelpMe

Morning All!

This one is a quicky since work is busy. The Bout of Books challenge for today was a Shelfie!! Since I'm not at home and couldn't post my library, I posted this photo of my purse! That's right, my purse always has my Kindle Fire and one of my currently reading picks. Did you expect less from me? My on the road Shelfie never let's me down!!

Until Tomorrow

XoXo
BrainyHeroine

Listening to Trees

Morning All,

Ready for my second #BoutOfBooks Day 2 challenge? This prompt was fun and a smidge challenging. We were challenged to share a book cover wiere the illustrations are part of the typography of the title. (i.e. The Water Knife or Mamita). When looking at the book cover, you just instantly know that the letters cannot be recreated by downloading a font.

I chose....drumroll please.......

Something cool....

Something different...

A book my husband would love...

Listening to Trees by A.K. Hellium!

The title and author name are in a sense carved into the tree rings that make up the cover image. While you can get close to the font, there would be no way to recreate it without doing the whole thing.

If you want to know more about the book, Click Here!

Until Tomorrow!

XoXo
BrainyHeroine

Mystère et Science: The Work of Holly Tucker

Bonjour les lecteurs! (Hello Readers!)

Today we are discussing the works of author Holly Tucker, Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France, Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, and City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris. 

Let me introduce the author, Holly Tucker, before delving into her works. Holly Tucker is a professor at Vanderbilt University, in their Department of French and Italian; she is also in their Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society. Her book Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and a Best Book of the Times Literary Supplement and Seattle Times. Her main residence is in Nashville, TN, but she can oft be found in Aix-en-Provence, France.

As a history major and science nerd I cannot fully express just how marvelous I found these books to be. They read like novels, and yet are filled to the brim with history and science. I was lucky enough to have gotten a copy of City of Light as an ARC through Litsy and promptly spent the weekend I got it reading, after re-reading her first two books. It is not often that I fangirl and stalk authors only to be given the chance at an ARC, but I was thrilled to have gotten this one. My husband, who is 100% math and chemistry, even found Blood Work to be fascinating. 

As a student of history, particularly medieval history, Tucker's first work "Pregnant Fictions" came to me by accident. I was searching for paper resources and grabbed everything with the term Medieval in it. While it was sadly of no use to me for my paper at the time I did appreciate the break it provided from my research, and the societal background it gave me on Medieval France. Here, Tucker makes the argument that "fairy-tale writers experimented with alternative ways of understanding pregnancy." While this seems far flung to many in the medical profession, it makes sense that women who were uneducated in biology would use what knowledge they had at their disposal to make sense of their surroundings. 

In Tucker's second book, which was read purely out of curiosity, she goes on to describe the mildly baffling world of blood transfusions at the height of their invention. This book will make you nauseous if you are squeamish around blood. Yet the story she weaves is an entertaining way to learn about the murder of Parisian madmen, via a blood infusion of CALF BLOOD, by Dr. Jean Denis. This was also an interesting read from a legalistic point of view; was what Dr. Denis did actually murder? Was it an experiment gone awry? It serves to remember that medical advancements have only ever come about through experimentation, often brutal and gruesome, often on the clinically insane or poor. Tucker manages to present a clear and direct argument, combing the history and mystery of France at the time. 

Her most recent book, City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris is the book I received an ARC of, which only served to save my book budget a few dollars because this would have come home with me no matter what. Her tale of Nicolas de La Reynie sweeps you up and spins you around Paris, making you feel as though you are following him in the labyrinthesque streets of the city itself. City of Light gives you this haunting history of Paris that almost seems impossible. As a city known for glamour and prestige, particularly during the reign of Louis XIV, Tucker illuminates Paris's secrets like no other. With every lamp hung, and corner turned, La Reynie and Tucker lead you further and further into the depths of Paris's dark heart.

Reading Holly Tucker's works have truly been a pleasure, and I will greedily lap up whatever she produces next. Her gift for blending the reality of history with the prose of her passion makes each book better than the last. Putting them down is hard.

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois,

XoXo
BrainyHeroine

Bout of Books: The Readers Readathon

Morning All,

The time has come for Bout of Books 19!! (You still have time to sign up! Just click HERE!!)

While all readathons are for readers this one is low key, designed for you to simply read as much as you can in a week with no torturous goals in mind. Unless you set them for yourself. Do you boo.
I love using readathons as an excuse to tidy up my TBR, to actually start a book or get off the shelf, and to maybe tackle a different genre. After working all day it's nice to just go home and lose my brain to whatever I'm reading, like every other reader. Yet the motivation of readathons is great. I've been derailed as a reader for the past couple months so trying to get back to that place I'd been in for the first bit of this year is going to be hard won.

Bout of Books also has daily challenges. Today's was to introduce ourselves in six words, nothing more, nothing less. My introduction is simple. "Reading and Grieving and Living and..." I tweeted this and immediately felt like a moron, but it's true. At the moment this is me. Who are you? What would you read this week?

Until next time! (Which happens to be later today!)

XoXo
BrainyHeroine