Observatory Mansions: A Book Blurb

OBSERVATORY MANSIONS

by Edward Carey

The Blurb 

With his parents and other equally maladjusted misfits and eccentrics, Francis Orme lives in Observatory Mansions, once a magnificent ancestral home with beautiful grounds, now a crumbling apartment block. In a blocked off corridor of the basement if Francis's Exhibition: a carefully catalogues and private display of the hundreds of items he has ever stolen, all of them precious to their original owners. But the arrival of a new tenant upsets the delicate balance of Observatory Mansions and Francis finds himself taking drastic measures to protect the secrets of his past and the sanctity of his collection.

The First Line 

I wore white gloves.

Why I Decided to Take on the Read

The bizarre cover made me grab it. I like the handwriting font used at the back of the book. The front cover displays the things that Francis is collecting. The drawing is weird. The handwriting is weird. The objects are weird. And I thought to myself, I must read it.

Post Script. The copy that I have obtained has a different look. Take a look at it here. 

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Five Quarters of the Orange: A Book Blurb

The Blurb

When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation years ago. But the past and present are inextricably entwined, particularly in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise has inherited from her mother. And soon Framboise will realize that the journal also contains the key to ther tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year....

The First Line

When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me, the youngest, her album and a two-liter jar containing a single black Périgord truffle, large as a tennis ball, suspended in sunflower oil, that, when uncorked, still releases the rich dank perfume of the forest floor.

Why I Decided to Take on the Read

I was instantly owned by this book upon my eyes laid upon it. The cover has a finely grainy texture. The wicked black font and orange peel on the cover made me want to go home and read it. The first line was breathtaking. Long sentences with carefully picked dainty words are love to me.

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