Green Books Campaign: The Merchant Kings by Stephen Bown

This review is part of the Green Books campaign . Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a  a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website .

What's green about this book you might ask?  Well it's green because it is printed on FSC-certified paper.  To find out more about what this means go to Green Books campaign.

I am thrilled to be a part of this campaign because I do try and do my part to help with our environment and buying a "green" book is one easy way I can.  Today to me is about showing the publishing industry what they can do to do their part too while still making print books for those of us who love print.

Now on to my book review:

 Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World 1600-1900 by Stephen R. Bown

Published: September 1, 2009
Publisher: D&M Adult
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 256

Rating: Easy to read, interesting

Thank you Raz at Eco-Libris for sending me this book for review and inviting me to be a part of the Green Books Campaign.
 My Review:

I have not finished the whole book yet.  But what I have read has been very enjoyable.  It is full of things I didn't know.  I would read some look up at my husband and say "Did you know ..." and he would say yes and then expound upon it.  All of this made me wonder where I was in history class all those years ago.


This is an interesting look at the first companies that existed and let me tell you - we think corporations are bad today - the ones that Mr. Bown has chosen to look at in this book that were in existence from 1600-1900 were very bad also.  Some of these companies had their own police force, military and usually their own government.  Whatever it took to take over and monopolize that corner of the world or market, they would do.

It reads like fiction, but it's not, full of wonderful facts and history, we learn what companies and business was like in previous times and how monopolies were rampant in this period of time.  A great book and I look forward to finishing it.  When I do my husband is wanting to read it too.  He's more of a non-fiction reader than I am and from the bits and pieces I have shared with him, he has decided this is a book he definitely wants to read.

About the Book:

Commerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant-adventurers who built the modern world, as told by "Canada's Simon Winchester".

The Merchant Kings of the Age of Heroic Commerce were a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life merchant-adventurers who, during a couple of hundred years, expanded their far-flung commercial enterprises over a good portion of the world to generate revenue for their shareholders, feather their own nests and satisfy their vanity and curiosity.

Merchant Kings looks at each ruling monopoly through its greatest "Merchant King" - Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company, Pieter Stuyvesant of the Dutch West India Company, Robert Clive of the English East India Company, Alexandr Baronov of the Russian American Company, George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company and Cecil John Rhodes of the British South Africa Company - and follows their fortunes through the era when nations belatedly assumed responsibility for these quasi-colonial commercial enterprises. These Merchant Kings were vested with enormous powers by both their company and their country: the right to establish private armies, pass laws, collect taxes and negotiate treaties or wage war with foreign princes.

In trying to balance the interests of their company with the interests of their country, they changed history as significantly as the most celebrated generals, despots and monarchs.

Merchant Kings is the narrative and biographical story of the great commercial monopolies that at one time ruled millions of people and vast tracts of the world. Although the stories of most Merchant Kings have been told before, they have never been considered together, even though they lived in overlapping time periods between the early 1600s and the late1800s.

Their incredible exploits changed the world during an age of unfettered globalization not unlike the period in which we find ourselves today.

Blog Tour and Review & Giveaway: To Desire A Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt

I am thrilled to be a part of the To Desire a Devil Blog Tour featuring Elizabeth Hoyt's fourth book in her The Legends of Four Soldiers series.  Check out this site for the other blogs this book is touring.

Thanks to Anna Balasi for sending me the book for review.


To Desire a Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt


Rating: 4.0/5.0

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publish Date: November 1, 2009

Pages: 384

Binding: Mass Market


My Review:


A wonderful historical romance.  I loved reading about this time that I knew little about.  I haven't read the previous three books in this series, but I will be now.


I loved the characters, Reynaud and Beatrice.  Their chemistry and relationship in the beginning was wonderful.  Beatrice is just a nice person and Reynaud is just trying to get used to living in civilization and society again after living with the Indians for the last seven years.  Beatrice is trying to protect her Uncle and his claim, but she has feelings for Reynaud too.  Reynaud does not want to have feelings for Beatrice, but he does and because of the world he has lived in for the last seven years he can't figure out how to act on them.


Add in some political intrigue, romance and a strong side to Beatrice who believes in her cause and you have a very enjoyable historical romance.  When a determined man meets an innocent yet determined woman, you can always be sure the sparks will fly.


Reading the first three in the series is not necessary to understand this book, but I do look forward to going back and reading them.


This is my first Elizabeth Hoyt book and it was a very enjoyable read.  I will pick up more of her books in the future when I'm in the mood for a wonderful historical romance.



Book Description:
NOTHING IS MORE INTOXICATING

Reynaud St. Aubyn has spent the last seven years in hellish captivity. Now half mad with fever he bursts into his ancestral home and demands his due. Can this wild-looking man truly be the last earl's heir, thought murdered by Indians years ago?

OR DANGEROUS
Beatrice Corning, the niece of the present earl, is a proper English miss. But she has a secret: No real man has ever excited her more than the handsome youth in the portrait in her uncle's home. Suddenly, that very man is here, in the flesh-and luring her into his bed.

THAN SURRENDERING TO A DEVIL.
Only Beatrice can see past Reynaud's savagery to the noble man inside. For his part, Reynaud is drawn to this lovely lady, even as he is suspicious of her loyalty to her uncle. But can Beatrice's love tame a man who will stop at nothing to regain his title-even if it means sacrificing her innocence?

Challenges:
100+ Book Challenge
Fall Into Reading Challenge 2009

Giveaway:

Thanks to Anna Balasi and Hachette Books I have three copies of this to giveaway to three people who leave comments.  Open to the US and Canada only.  Giveaway will run through November 24.  Please leave your email address (in code) to enter.

Additional entries for:

• (+3) for following me on my blog (rss feed, blogger, email) (old or new follower)
  
• (+3) for following me on twitter (old or new follower)
• (+5) for tweeting about this (+5 daily - you can use the following for your tweet: Blog Tour, Review and a chance to win 1 of 3 copies of To Desire A Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt at My Reading Room http://ow.ly/AZPN @cfulcher )
  

You can leave all your entries in 1 comment - I can tally up the entries.  If you tweet additional days please feel free to leave additional comments.


 

Teaser Tuesday - November 10

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"I can't think of else's viscount he might be if not yours," he teased. "Isn't this the same man as the pretty youth in that portrait in your sitting room?  I've watched you moon over that thing for years."

Beatrice twisted her fingers guiltily.  "Was I so obvious as all that?"

"Only to me, darling," Jeremy replied fondly.  "Only to me."

From To Desire A Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt

Review: The Clique by Lisi Harrison

The Clique by Lisi Harrison




My rating: 4.25/5.0




My Review:


While currently reading the Gossip Girl series, I didn't know what to expect from The Clique series. I was pleasantly surprised. This seems to be a good series for middle school girls and while the girls aren't completely innocent, they aren't quite as worldly as the high school girls in the Gossip Girl series.

The Clique introduces us to the girls of The Pretty Committee and the new girl Claire who desperately wants to be a part of The Pretty Committee. I found this book to be true to how middle school life really is. Cliques exist unfortunately and most girls want to be in the popular girls clique. I didn't think Massie, Dylan, Kristen or Alicia were particularly cruel. They weren't nice to others, but they weren't completely mean acting to me. Massie seems the worst of the lot but that is what you would expect from the leader. I liked that the book showed the vulnerability of the Pretty Committee along with that of Claire.

I also like that Claire doesn't let go of too much of herself to be a part of this group.

This is an enjoyable afternoon read for girls of all ages. I enjoyed it and went from finishing this one right on to the next one.


About the Book:

Meet The Clique…

Massie Block: With her glossy brunette bob and laser-whitened smile, Massie is the uncontested ruler of The Clique and the rest of the social scene at Octavian Country Day School, an exclusive private girls’ school in Westchester County, New York. Massie knows you’d give anything to be just like her.

Dylan Marvil: Massie's second in command who divides her time between sucking up to Massie and sucking down Atkins Diet shakes.

Alicia Rivera: As sneaky as she is beautiful, Alicia floats easily under adult radar because she seems so "sweet." Would love to take Massie's throne one day. Just might do it.

Kristen Gregory: She's smart, hardworking, and will insult you to tears faster than you can say "my haircut isn't ugly!"

Enter Claire Lyons, the new girl from Florida in Keds and two-year-old Gap overalls, who is clearly not Clique material. Unfortunately, for her, Claire's family is staying in the guesthouse on Massie's family's huge estate while they look for a new home. Claire's future looks worse than a bad Prada knockoff. But with a little luck and a lot of scheming, Claire might just come up smelling like Chanel No. 19....

The Clique... the only thing harder than getting in is staying in.

Challenges:
100+ Book Challenge
Support Your Local Library Challenge
Fall Into Reading Challenge 2009

Review and Opinions Wanted: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney




My rating: 4.0/5.0

An interesting quick read that middle grade kids will enjoy.

Mixing a chapter book with comics and drawings on every page makes this easy and enjoyable to read. My son has read all of these books and was thrilled when his book fair coincided with the release week of this book.

The rating above is based on readability and the fact that my son loved it.

Now on to my personal thoughts:

I let him read through all of these and didn't think anything about it. Then my husband flipped through it and didn't like what he saw, so he asked me (being the more open-minded one) to read it and see what I thought.

So I did and I was surprised. I'm not sure I like this book - this child wants to sit around and play video games and not do anything with his family. He admits he and his dad have nothing in common and even goes as far as to call the police on his dad during one episode because he thinks his dad is going to leave him somewhere when his dad is just taking him to a baseball game.

I am disturbed by this child and I'm not sure why. I really don't want the values he is espousing to be planted in my child's head. Maybe I need to read the first three, maybe they are better and I would understand the character more.

I am Christian but I don't usually feel strongly about books. I wouldn't hesitate to let my boys read Harry Potter as I have read the first one and loved it and see no harm in it. But I do see harm in this book. At least from my stand point.

So help me out here - have you read this series - am I wrong - I'm willing and really want some other opinions here. I don't believe my opinion is the end-all and be-all, I'm unsure as far as these books are concerned.

So tell me your thoughts on this series. Should I let me son read the next one whenever it comes out or should I discourage him? What do you think of the book?


About the Book:

It’s summer vacation, the weather’s great, and all the kids are having fun outside. So where’s Greg Heffley? Inside his house, playing video games with the shades drawn.

Greg, a self-confessed “indoor person,” is living out his ultimate summer fantasy: no responsibilities and no rules. But Greg’s mom has a different vision for an ideal summer . . . one packed with outdoor activities and “family togetherness.”

Whose vision will win out? Or will a new addition to the Heffley family change everything?

100+ Book Challenge
Fall Into Reading Challenge 2009

Article: Jane is my Co-Pilot: The Fine Art of Making Sense and Sensibility Totally Ridiculous by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters

Jane is my Co-Pilot: The Fine Art of Making Sense and Sensibility Totally Ridiculous
By Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters,
Authors of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Since writing Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, I've gotten a ton of feedback about how nice it is that I've made Jane Austen appealing to certain readers -- meaning readers who previously suffered a persistent allergy to The Classics. I am complimented for taking the prim and decorous Jane Austen and making her, A) really violent, and B) really funny.

The first compliment I will gladly accept. Over the decades since Sense and Sensibility first appeared, it has been noted by scholars and casual readers alike that the book is sorely lacking in shipwrecks, shark attacks, and vividly described decapitations. I believe it was the poet and critic Thomas Chatterton who admired the novel's careful plotting and social critique, but lamented the total absence of vengeful ghost pirates.

But I can't take credit for making Jane Austen funny. As is well known by passionate fans of Austen -- I have yet to meet any other kind -- the old girl has always been funny. Take for example Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, a set of secondary characters in Sense and Sensibility. The periodic appearances of the Palmers comprise what any comedy writer will recognize as a running gag. Mrs. Palmer is chatty and trivial, while Mr. Palmer (a delightful Hugh Laurie in the Ang Lee version) is gruff and unaffectionate. What Mrs. Palmer labels "droll," the reader -- along with Elinor, our sensible heroine -- recognizes as plain distaste for his wife, her friends, and everybody else in the universe. Every time those Palmers show up, we know we're in for the next variation on the same great gag.

Note that Austen doesn't do to the Palmers what Charles Dickens would: Exaggerate their core traits to the point of absurdity. (Also, she doesn't name them something like Mr. and Mrs. Featherwit). The Palmers are funny, but they're plausible, and their primary function in the book is to provide not laughs, but a corrective to Marianne's rosy ideal of married life. So Austen makes them funny, but not ridiculous.

Making them ridiculous was my job. When the Palmers appear in my monsterfied Sensibility, I give Mr. Palmer's drollery a murky, weird-tales back story, part of the preposterously elaborate foreshadowing of my H.P. Lovecraft-inspired denouement.

I play the same game, of comically amplifying what's already there, in varying ways throughout the book. Colonel Brandon, stiff and formal and middle-aged, becomes a stiff and formal and middle-aged man-monster. Genial Sir John becomes genial adventurer/explorer Sir John. Had Austen made all her characters ridiculous in that Dickensian way, if she had been the kind of writer who is forever winking at her readers, my book would be (as they say in improv comedy) a hat on a hat. But because Sense and Sensibility is so eloquent and restrained, Sea Monsters gets to go way over the top.

This is true even on the simple level of vocabulary. Austen's precise early-19th century diction is the textual equivalent of Eustace Tilly, the top-hatted, monocled figure from the cover of the New Yorker: Her writing simply oozes good taste. The trick was to appropriate that ever-so-tasteful and old-timey Austenian style to describe things she never would have:

In the profound silence that followed, their ears were filled with a low thrashing sound, as the corpse of the bosun's mate was noisily consumed by devil fish. At length the captain drew upon his pipe, and spoke again. "Let us only pray that this is the worst such abomination you encounter in this benighted land; for such is but a minnow, when compared to the Devonshire Fang-Beast."

"The . . . what?"

Even more fun to play with than Austen's eloquent vocabulary is her universe of enforced emotional rectitude. The Dashwood sisters live in a world where one's feelings are not blurted out -- or, at least, they're not meant to be, as sensible Elinor is continually reminding sensitive Marianne. It's a constant struggle to keep one's emotions hidden beneath the surface; all I did was literalize that metaphor in the most preposterous way, by adding deadly and dangerous monsters which appear literally from beneath the surface.

There was one factor above all that made Sense and Sensibility such a fun comic foil, and that is the place the book holds in the cultural firmament. One question I've heard a lot (or read a lot, as it's the sort of thing that comes up on blog comment-threads), is "Why didn't you do Persuasion? That's the Austen book that actually takes place on the water!"

The answer is simply that Persuasion, unlike Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice, may be a great book, but it is not a Great Book. It has not gathered around itself the unmistakable stink of importance.

Sense and Sensibility, on the other hand, stands in the literary tradition as Margaret Dumont stands before Groucho Marx, as the Chairman of the Reception Committee in Duck Soup: Prim and proper and radiating worthiness -- just waiting, in other words, for someone to hit it with a pie.

©2009 Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters, authors of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Author Bios 
Jane Austen, coauthor of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, is coauthor of the New York Times best seller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which has been translated into 17 languages and optioned to become a major motion picture. She died in 1817. 

Ben H. Winters, coauthor of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, is a writer based in Brooklyn.

For more information please visit www.benhwinters.com and www.quirkclassics.com

What Are You Reading Monday - November 9

Come post weekly and see what others are reading too just so you can add to your tbr - I always do! For more information see J.Kaye's Book Blog and join in!

Books Completed Last Week:

• The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz (review) 
• The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin (review)
• Love's Reflection by Carol North (review)
• The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney (DS's book)
  
• The Clique by Lisi Harrison (library) 
• Best Friends For Never by Lisi Harrison (library)
  
• Revenge of the Wannabees by Lisi Harrison  (library)
  

Reading Now:

• Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough (review)
• Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (audiobook with DS)
• Sole Survivor by Dean Koontz (audiobook)
• Across the Endless River by (review)
• To Desire a Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt (review & tour)
  

Reviews Completed Last Week

• Sex, Drugs and Gefilte Fish: A Heebe Storytelling Collection -  non-fiction; essays - (3.75/5.0)
  
• Purity in Death by J.D. Robb - fiction; romantic suspense (4.0/5.0)
• The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz - non-fiction; memoir - (4.75/5.0) 
• Love's Reflection by Carol North - fiction, science fiction, romance (4.5/5.0)
• The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin - fiction, romance (4.5/5.0)
• The Evolution Conspiracy by Lisa A. Shiel - non-fiction
  

Next:

• Love Your Body, Love Your Life by (review)
• Merchant Kings
• To Desire a Devil 
• Kissing Games of the World
• Children of the Dust
  

Reviews to do:

• The Clique by Lisi Harrison
• Best Friends For Never by Lisi Harrison
• Revenge of the Wannabees by Lisi Harrison
  
• The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney
• Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
• The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate (review)
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (library)
• Austenland by Shannon Hale (library)
  
• Only In Your Dreams by Cecily von Ziegesar
• Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning
• Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Relentless by Dean Koontz
• Hunted by P.C. and Kristin Cast
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• True Colors by Kristen Hannah

Summary -

It was a good week reading and review wise.  I expanded my reading horizons with non-fiction and science fiction and The Clique books.  I really enjoyed everything I read and look forward to catching up on more reviews this week.  It's a full one with scheduled reviews and tours so I will busy.  Have a wonderful week all!