Mondays: Mailbox/What Are You Reading?/Musings

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at A Girl and Her Books. This month it is hosted by Martha of Reviews By Martha's Bookshelf.

I received two books this past week, thanks to authors/publicists:
1) The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught: Travis Laurence Naught is a poet who is not willing to trade on tragedy. He is a man of risk, afflicted with ferocious, unrestricted thinking and ruthless questioning, though he has never taken an independent step in his life. Many in his shoes might feel confined by the metal of a wheelchair, but Naught's work conveys a freedom and an audaciousness that will surprise readers with his startling views. The Virgin Journals speak truth through poetry and prose. They tell the reader about Naught's frustrations, from being a quadriplegic to his life of celibacy in his late twenties. In the end, his expectation is for readers to forget physical disabilities and concentrate on that which makes us similar: life, love, and the obstacles we work to overcome.

2) The Islands by Carlos Gamerro: Buenos Aires, 1992. Hacker Felipe Felix is summoned to the vertiginous twin towers of magnate Fausto Tamerlan and charged with finding the witnesses to a very public crime. Rejecting the mission is not an option. After a decade spent immersed in drugs and virtual realities, trying to forget the freezing trench in which he passed the Falklands War, Felix is forced to confront the city around him - and realizes to his shock that the war never really ended. A detective novel, a cyber-thriller, an inner-city road trip and a war memoir, The Islands is a hilarious, devastating and dizzying surreal account of a history that remains all too raw.

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere?


I can stop anywhere. I don't even use a bookmark. I remember the page number and start reading right away!