Time Travel: When You've Gotta Go, and How Annie's Crew Managed

The Polar Book Club book took me a little bit longer to read than I anticipated— so thank you for your patience. Let's discuss The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster by Scott Wilbanks!

Intrepid Reader Karen suggested the book for our Polar Book Club because it sounded amazing: a young woman in San Francisco wakes up one day to discover a 19th century Kansas wheat field in her backyard, along with a letterbox that contains a letter addressed to her — from the year 1890.

The wheat field appears soon after Annie takes delivery of an old red wooden door purchased from a local antique shop. After a little digging, she discovers the door was once owned by the magician David Abbott, who was killed only days before it was sold at auction more than a century before. Her new "neighbor" Elsbeth dated her letter only days before the magician's murder. Can the crime be prevented and a life saved?

From the beginning, I wasn't sure what to make of the characters: Annie, a recently orphaned, terminally ill woman who speaks, dresses, and acts like a 19th century woman; Christian, her contemporary who survived a terrible accident and lives with the horror every moment of every day; Elsbeth, a widowed, retired schoolteacher who doesn't suffer fools and is all-business about everything in life; and Edmond, a gardener and friend of Christian's who is the key to this mystery — or is he?

Throw in David, an other-worldly magician doing the impossible with an ordinary-looking door; the good-natured but wary street urchin Cap'n who leads a perfectly oiled team of hungry, homeless kids; and truly evil, remorseless henchmen — and you have the motley crew who make up the story.

The book's characters seemed to embrace the outlandish premise too quickly. What would a time traveler need to do to convince you of their story? Would you travel across the country at the drop of a hat upon request and receipt of a pre-dated news article? What would you do for a virtual stranger: risk your life, your health, your future — or your present?

The book started a little slow for my taste, then began throwing in one bizarre vision, connection, and coincidence after another. In the end, it amounted to one too many coincidences, misjudged pop culture references, an implausibly violent scene in a rather soft-edged story, and an improbable ending that tidied up every conceivable loose end. However, I'd still consider it a three-star read: it is good time travel, and it presents an interesting premise, and a pretty intense ride full of surprises and familiar themes.

Polar Book Clubbers — and other readers of the book — what did you think? Send me a note, or comment below!

Join the 2019 Polar Book Club — And Read With Friends

What else should an Intrepid Reader do during the winter but — well, read?


Join the Polar Book Club in reading The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster by Scott Wilbanks. 


It's a novel loaded with time travel, mystery, and — you know what? I'll let the author describe the book himself:


Annabelle Aster has discovered a curious thing behind her home in San Francisco: a letter box perched atop a picket fence. 

The note inside is blunt—“Trespass is dealt with at the business end of a shotgun in these parts!”— spurring some lively correspondence between the Bay Area orphan and her new neighbor, a feisty widow living in a nineteenth century Kansas wheat field. 


The source of mischief is an antique door Annie installed at the rear of her house. The man who made the door—a famed Victorian illusionist—died under mysterious circumstances. Annie and her new neighbor, with the help of friends and strangers alike, must solve the mystery of what connects them across time before one of them is convicted of a murder that is yet to happen... and somehow already did.



Now that you're hooked... join the club!

Let's begin the discussion on Monday, March 4. 

You can leave a comment on the blog, below, or email me your impressions and I'll publish the thread of our conversation on the blog. You can decide how you want to be identified, if at all, in the conversation.

Thanks to Intrepid Reader Karen for giving me this book last summer, and for suggesting it for the Polar Book Club.

Questions? Comments? Ideas for the Spring Reading Club? Comment below or contact me!

Polar Reading 2017: Conversation Begins March 6

Well, for some of us, this winter hasn't really been all that "polar." For the rest of us: have you dug out yet?

No matter your frost level, there's still time to catch up on this year's Polar Book Club selection: The Bookman's Tale. I have been slowly savoring it, and it's coming along nicely.

If you haven't started it yet, maybe this description of Charlie Lovett's will tickle your fancy:

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. 

But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins. 

As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

All you have to do to join the club is pick up the book and start reading! 

Okay, two things: get the book (from the library, bookstore, thrift store with a book section — or share with a friend) and email me so we can coordinate our discussion.

Right now, the schedule is to finish the book by March 5, so the conversation can begin the following day. (Give yourself a chance to savor the book, give it some thought, maybe even re-read it.)

The conversation will be relaxed and friendly. We all are book lovers who read the same book, and we want to know what others thought of it.

However, the conversation is better when readers offer details and examples of why they hated something, or how a particular character development changed the whole tenor of the story. Or, you know, whether you think William Shakespeare was really another writer using s pseudonym.

So, are you in? Let me know!

Polar Book Club, the 2017 Edition: Get the Book and Start Reading!

Temperatures are dropping in the Northern Hemisphere as Old Man Winter tries to settle in for a nice, long visit. (Okay, maybe it's not that long, but it feels like it.) 

You know what that means, right?

It's time to announce the selection of the 2017 Polar Book Club! 

Make sure you have enough hot beverage and snacks, nab the warmest blanket, carve out the best spot with excellent lighting, charge your e-reader, grab this year's tome and settle in for a long winter's read. 

Uber-Reader Karen has chosen the book for the 2017 Polar Book Club: The Bookman's Tale.  It sounds like a doozie!

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. 
But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins.
As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

If you want to join the club, there's only one thing you need to do: get the book and start reading! 

Okay, two things: get the book (from the library, bookstore, thrift store with a book section — or share with a friend) and email me so we can coordinate our discussion.

Let's aim to finish the book by March 5, 2017, so the conversation can begin.

Relax, this is not a book report or a school assignment. It's all about the book and reading, and sharing your ideas with your fellow readers. 

Here are a few things that may stimulate your thinking:

Consider why you liked (or didn't like) the book, and think about how you can express that to other readers to spur discussion. Did you like the characters? Was the story plausible — and if not, was it the right kind of fantastic? What would you do in the same situation? 

Remember, if you liked the book, telling others why may not be as easy as if you didn't like it, so think about specific things you liked: passages, tone, characters or points in the story.

So, are you in? Let me know!

Polar Book Club: Let's Go for Two in 2016!

It's time to declare Winter Reading with the Polar Book Club!
Uber-Reader Karen and I have chosen two books for the 2016 Polar Book Club: Library of Souls and The Luminaries.

Library of Souls:

Time is running out for the Peculiar Children. With a dangerous madman on the loose and their beloved Miss Peregrine still in danger, Jacob Portman and Emma Bloom are forced to stage the most daring of rescue missions. They’ll travel through a war-torn landscape, meet new allies, and face greater dangers than ever... Will Jacob come into his own as the hero his fellow Peculiars know him to be? This action-packed adventure features more than 50 all-new peculiar photographs.

The Luminaries, the 2013 Man Booker Award winner:

It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.

After we finish the books — let's aim for March 15, 2016 —  club members can join an e-mail conversation about the book.

How you participate is up to you. Think about why you liked (or didn't like) the book, and consider telling other readers about it to spur discussion. No one is right or wrong. It's all about the book and reading. If you want me to throw out a few questions to start the conversation, just let me know.

E-mail me to join the Polar Book Club — and the ensuing conversation.

True Confession: Polar Book Club Failure

I hang my head in shame and announce something that should be obvious by now: I did not read Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, the Polar Book Club book this past winter.

I tried. In fact, I am still trying to read it, a few sideways glances at a time.

It is perhaps the least enjoyable book I have encountered this year.

It was weird, which I normally do not mind (and, truth be told, tend to prefer). 

It was tedious reading, scattered, unfocused storytelling. 

It also put children in adult situations. Okay, let's not be coy: a pre-teen boy was having all the sex he could muster. I cannot tolerate gratuitous sexualization of children in books, and since the story ambled along in a scattershot way, I did not see the value in that portrayal of a child. 

Finally, it was not the story I expected to read. I thought I was getting a love story that stretched across time.  Instead, I managed to get quite a ways into the story without a glimmer of such romance (but plenty of sex).

I read a few pages every once in a while, hoping it gets somewhere good. However, I think I am formally and publicly surrendering. It's not the book I want to read, so I won't.

Have you read it? Have you tried? Let me know!

A Winter's Read: Polar Book Club and Mark Helprin's Tale

Winter is the perfect time to bundle up, grab a cuppa and climb into a good book. Who's with me?

Let's form the Polar Book Club!

The 2015 Polar Book Club selection is Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.

Here is a description from Helprin's website:

Set in New York at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, Winter´s Tale unfolds with such great narrative force and beauty that a reader can feel that its world is more real than his own. Standing alone on the page before the book begins are the words, I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me. In that world, both winter and the city of New York (old and new) have the strength and character of protagonists, and the protagonists themselves move as if in a vivid dream. Though immensely complicated, the story is centered upon Peter Lake, a turn-of-the-century Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young heiress whom he encounters in robbing her house, and who eventually will die young and in his arms. His love for her, and a gift of grace, will allow him after the most extraordinary and painful explorations and discoveries to stop time and bring back the dead. To follow him, his predecessors, his inheritors, and his companions is to experience one of the great stories of American literature.

 The book is available in bookstores and libraries.

After we finish the book — let's aim for March 5, 2015 —  club members can join an e-mail conversation about the book.

This isn't a lit class, so how (and with whom) you participate is up to you. However, think about why you liked (or didn't like) the book, and consider telling other readers about it to spur discussion. No one is right or wrong. It's all about the book and reading.

E-mail me to join the Polar Book Club — and the ensuing conversation.