As usual with Moore, a strange and haunting tale located mostly - give or take a few magic realist excursions into other epochs - in the artistic milieu of Paris in the late 19th Century. The reader meets an array of great impressionist painters in the years before their fame.

The story is well researched and finely crafted, enjoyable for the local colour (no pun intended) alone. That colour, as the title indicates, is blue. Moore lends it a mystical significance, the pursuit of the sacred blue being a leitmotiv of art down the centuries. A fanciful but cleverly executed idea, even if the motiv does feel laboured and too repetitive at times.

Passed to semioticghosts at Cup of Coffee in Rosemary Road.

This was gratefully received from MikeTroll with a warm recommendation!

This is the kind of book I might have never come across, if it hadn't been for the friendly book-pushing efforts of MikeTroll's.

It's beautiful, as a book itself, in the form of the characters in brings to life from the hisotry of art, and in terms of the plot, which only very gradually becomes clear towards the final third of the book.

This book is to be posted as a random act of bookcrossing kindness to the lovely Bookczuck.

If you are the finder, you can make a journal entry here - you can remain anonymous if you want! I hope you enjoy the book and that you'll get a chance to leave it somewhere else for someone else to find in due course. There is an old (but still very informative) article on bookcrossing to be found here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/31/fiction.features1

This book was waiting for us in our mailbox when we got home from a trip. I love Christopher Moore in general, and this book in specifics. In fact, two nights before returning home, I recommended this book to a friend. I may just have to lend it out to her before passing it along to another person I know will love it.

Usually I am not a huge fan of having historical people appear in novels, but in this case, it was done by Christopher Moore, so of course the result was really funny, clever, and a bit irreverent. This book made me want to look up artworks from artists mentioned, paint, and hit someone with a baguette.

Thanks to Semioticghost, for thinking of me and sending this book. (Waves to Miketroll, too.) The only thing sweeter than a surprise in the mail with your name on it, would have been having you fetch up here in person!

So, this book is going to be part of a tour of Charleston, on a little journey I am calling #chuckformike and #miketravels. I shall try to take it to some places specifically requested by our own miketroll, for a virtual re-visit to Charleston. Love you, Mike!

Christopher wanted to visit another author's abode, so Javaczuk and I took him to Robert Jordan's home, here in Charleston. (Note the Wheel of Time Flag.) (Sorry about the cockeyed view-- will fix later...maybe)

Photo taken in tribute to Christopher Moore's Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, who, I am sure, has some dragons somewhere in the woodpile.

This is a placeholder for Angel Oak. I won't be able to get out there until after my car is out of the shop, but a photographer friend took this photograph, which was on display at the Piccolo Arts festival we've been stopping in lately. I've gone blank on his last name but he's Steven, and the sweetheart of our friend Erica, who is a massage therapist, energy worker, and shaman. We have wonderful friends, including you!

Folly Beach, where both deBose Heyward had a house (once called Follywood, now called The Porgy House) and where George Gershwin stayed (at another house, now in the Atlantic Ocean thanks to a hurricane) while writing the operatic version of Porgy and Bess, was alluded to on Mike's request regarding a tour of Charleston. (No grave of either man there, but it is my favorite local beach, for the quirky community who reside on the island.) The picture is of my favorite spot on Folly Beach.

Next up, the market and a carriage ride. This picture was taken from the carriage being drawn by a horse named Freddy and a guide named Shawn. The story is so remarkable that I will blog about it and post the link here, eventually.) That's Saint Philip's church spire you see, and as Shawn says, it leans slightly to the left, because so do the parishioners there. (Actually, it was an earthquake that shook it up in 1886.)

Freddy and Shawn; kind hearted souls (that's an assumption on the part of Freddy, but for sure on Shawn.) All that's left is King St and Meeting St, then the book goes to Speddy for the start of a book ring or ray.

Spedbug
Beteljooz
stinalyn
???

Jessibud send me this picture of a 2007 carriage tour she took with Mike, Olive, and Hotflash at the 2007 BookCrossing convention, and asked I add it to the journal.

South of Broad, on South of Broad

Banner on the City Hall, at the Four Corners of Law, on Meeting and Broad, for Spoleto US, which ends today. Just King St left to document, then can send the book on to Speddy!

King Street in Charleston, on a Second Sunday, where they close the street to traffic and all sorts of stuff happens.

Packaging this up and sending off to Spedbug. It will go media mail and should reach her after her Australian invasion has headed back down under. It was a pleasure hosting a mini-tour for MikeTroll.

I love that this book took a tour of Charleston before coming into my hot little hands. I also love that it has been in the hands of some dear Bookcrossing friends before it came to rest in mine. I will read this once I'm finished my Stephen King tome and then pass it on to the next BCer requesting it.

As much as I wanted to love this book, I just couldn't connect with it. I finally abandoned it when, upon picking up another book and gulping the second choice in a day and a half, I knew I wasn't just in a reading slump. Moore's imagination and writing style are amusing, but in this book, I found the repetition wearing. Meh.

I sent this off to a fellow bookcrosser who, I hope, will better appreciate it. :)

This copy of "Sacré Bleu" was passed along to me by my friend SpedBug. What a treat! Inside and out, it was something to behold. I loved the cover art and the rough-edged pages, the likes of which I haven't seen in ages. The book is also peppered throughout with images of paintings by the real-life characters within the story. Probably the most stylistically unique Christopher Moore book I've read to-date.

Sacré Bleu tells an entertaining tale, employing a nice blend of characters both real and imagined. It is also a great lesson in art history. To be sure, and as the author himself freely admits in the end notes, much of it is made up, but some is also based on historical research. Having read this, my curiosity into the art and artists of the era has been piqued. The depictions of life in Paris in the 1800s really put me in the shoes of the protagonists.

This is also one of Mr. Moore's more 'serious' books. More along the lines of "Island of the Sequined Love Nun," as opposed to "Lamb" or "Bloodsucking Fiends," which are more comedic. In the first two thirds of the book, there are only a few sparks of the witty dialogue I've come to expect from the author. In the last third of the book, Mr. Moore finally seems to loosen up and unleashes the witticisms. All-in-all, a treat for the eyes and the mind.

This copy of Sacré Bleu is now continuing its journey as part of a controlled release.

Thank you for passing this along to me! I look forward to reading it soon.

This is quite different from other Christopher Moore books I've read, but I'm quite enjoying it so far.