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The renovation finally | Weekly Snapshot

I've been having quite a few busy weekends and haven't been able to post often on Sundays.  Renovating I have dropped a teaser here a few times but here's the scoop finally - We are renovating a big chunk of our main level. We've been planning this for the past 6-7 months. It started as a kitchen renovation project but now includes flooring through the main floor and master bathroom. We will have the renovation crew start tomorrow and depending on when all the materials get in, it could be 1.5-3 months before they are done. I just hope the flooring is done quickly because then we can reclaim some of the main floor back. Not having a kitchen for 2-3 months is going to be very challenging but we've been promised a small work area on the main floor where we can cook early morning and later in the evening. But I'm thinking more about the little things - making coffee while I work, taking care of the day to day activities - the upstairs and the basement can be used b

Indie Lit Awards winners


On Monday, the winners of the 2011 Indie Lit Awards were announced. Finally, I can discuss the books with you! In the Fiction category, Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones took the cake while Dance Lessons by Aine Greaney was the runner-up, both books I enjoyed tremendously. Another nominee, The Night Circus, was also a huge favorite of mine.

I did have a really tough time deciding between these three. Night Circus was beautiful - the imagery was vivid, the magic was clever, the plot was thrilling. But the characters aren't part of its strengths at all. Still, when I closed the book finally, I knew it was going to be one of my favorite books, even with its faults.

Silver Sparrow was more grounded in reality. The first thought that comes to mind when I think of this book is its strong characters. They were flawed, yet very human, and not at all stereotypical. Even the plot was intriguing. Unfortunately, the ending tripped for me. It was somewhat unsatisfying.

Dance Lessons is what I would like to call the underdog of this competition. I had heard of all the other books in the shortlist before they were nominated. Dance Lessons was the lone stranger, and its synopsis, cover and title didn't interest me at all. But the book was wonderful. Most of the characters were well-etched (there were still a couple that bugged me), the plot was interesting, but here again, I found some things not making sense.

In the end, it was Silver Sparrow's literary merit that won out for me, and I was glad when it won the award in Fiction category. There were two other books in the shortlist that didn't leave me feeling enthusiastic. Cross Currents by John Shors started off well, but the pacing really disappointed me. None of the characters left an impression on me and the ending felt more filmy that realistic. The biggest disappointment, however, was The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene. It took me a long time and some dedicated scheduling to read this book - it might do better as a movie, because it had some aspects that would make it great for the screen but the book didn't appeal to me.

Now that the winners have been announced, I'm eager to read the top books in the other categories. I haven't read any of them, except for one book.

Biography/Memoir
Winner: Little Princes by Conor Grennan
Runner-Up: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

GLBTQ
Winner: Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender by Nick Krieger
Runner-Up: Huntress by Malinda Lo

Mystery
Winner: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Runner-Up: Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski

Non-Fiction
Winner: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
Runner-Up: Berlin 1961 by Frederick Kempe

Poetry
Winner: Catalina by Laurie Soriano
Runner-Up: What Looks Like an Elephant by Edward Nudelman

Speculative Fiction
Winner: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (one of my favorites from last year!)
Runner-Up: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness


Comments

bermudaonion (Kathy) said…
Thanks for your thoughts on the books in your category.  I've read three of the winners and, oddly enough, I've read both of the speculative fiction winners.
Helen Murdoch said…
It must have been so much fun to be on the committee and to have a book you really enjoyed win! Great list all around
Russell Smith said…
I am confused (not unusual in of itself)  as to why they are independent.  Maybe it is supposed to be really obvious, but I looked at their "about" page and saw that they emphasised literary, but I didn't catch what exactly was meant by independent.  Sorrry for being obtuse.
Books in the City (Colleen) said…
I am so happy to see Dance Lessons getting recognition - it was on my top 10 last year.  It was fun to be part of the memoir/bio committee this year -the books were actually very  different from each other so it was challenging to compare them but we did land on a ranking in the end. 
Juju at Tales of Whimsy.com said…
You make Silver Sparrow sound sooo good. 
zibilee said…
I just got Silver Sparrow, and really want to get the time to read it. It sounds like such a complex story, and also very literary, which I like. I will be curious about how the ending goes for me after reading your thoughts on it.
Ti said…
I am anxious to read Silver Sparrow and Dance Lessons. Both of which I never even heard of prior to them being nominated. 
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