Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: Loot

Wow! It's been a long time since I did these two tags! Six years, in fact. This is a rather spontaneous post, spurred by the fact that I just started reading Loot this morning! On a Friday! The timing just felt right.

A little background on the book (from Goodreads): "A spellbinding historical novel set in the eighteenth century - a hero’s quest, a love story, the story of a young artist coming of age, and an exuberant heist adventure that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across two continents and fifty years. A wildly inventive, irresistible feat of storytelling from a writer at the height of her powers."

Books Beginnings

Book Beginnings is a tag hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader every Friday. Basically, you just share the first sentence of a book you're currently reading (or a book you want to read but haven't gotten around to yet). As already mentioned, my book beginning this week is from Loot by Tania James:

"On the day he is taken from his family, Abbas is carving a peacock into a cabinet door."

I purchased Loot at the Washington Writers Conference (and even met Tania James in person! She signed the book!). Apart from the gorgeous cover and awesome title, I just thought the premise of the story sounded interesting (the cover and title are linked to Goodreads, so if you want to check it out, you can click either of those).

The Friday 56

The Friday 56, originally hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice, is now being hosted by Anne at My Head is Full of Books. Here are the rules from Anne's blog:

RULES:

• Grab a book, any book
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader
• Find a snippet, but no spoilers!
• Post it to your blog. Don't forget to add the URL of your post to the Linky on Anne's blog!

I'm only on page 14 of Loot, so let me flip ahead to page 56 and find a snippet ...

"As for Tipu's wives and daughters, they are confined to the zenana, behind windows of jaali-worked teak meant to keep them from seeing and being seen. (And yet they know how to see what they are not meant to see; they've been seeing this way for ages, seeing inwardly, and if you try the same method, you just might see the fingertip of a little girl, tracing a hollow in the jaali-work that seems, to her, tapered exactly like the tiger's eye of her imaginings.)"

I already love Tania James's writing and I can't wait to read the rest of this book!

What are you currently reading? Have you read Loot?

I'll be back next Wednesday with a book review!