Gearing up mentally for another season of holiday retail in Grand Central Terminal--which is exactly as bananas as it sounds--I had the bright idea to counter the real-life stress with some nice dystopic reading. Lighten the mood after a long day, right? Have already started (Black Friday being the ceremonial consumerist debut of the season) with Stephen King's apocalyptic epic The Stand, which is crazy good. Dude can create and dispatch characters so effectively, with such an understanding of the Western cultural expectation of story; it's as satisfying as listening to Mozart.
Other novels on deck:
Things We Didn't See Coming, Steven Amsterdam
Pure, Julianna Baggott
The Giver, Lois Lowry
The Purple Cloud, M.P. Shiel
The Slynx, Tatyana Tolstaya
Chalcot Crescent, Fay Weldon
We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
Let's hope this lineup eases some stress!
Showing posts with label housekeeping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housekeeping. Show all posts
24 November 2012
30 April 2012
Announcing Mystery May!
There comes a time in every bookseller's life when she looks at her TBR shelf and her stack of ARCs dutifully organized by release month and says to herself, "Ehn, screw it." For me, that moment of mutiny came last week, when I finished up Asa Nonami's Rebecca-but-so-much-creepier Now You're One of Us and realized I was in the mood for a run of mysteries, darned the torpedoes, and moved on to Tana French's amazing In the Woods. (Full reviews of both of these forthcoming. I've been sick. Again.)
Join me, then, as I catch up on a bunch of authors I've been meaning to read . . . and grant myself re-reads of China Mieville's The City and the City and Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night (ugh, how is the latter out of print? what is wrong with people?). Here's my wishlist:
Ken Bruen, The Guards
Jim Butcher, Storm Front (Dresden Files #1)
Alafair Burke, Never Tell (this one is an ARC, out in June)
Tana French, The Likeness
John Green, Paper Towns
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Scott Phillips, The Adjustment
Lauren Willig, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
Join me, then, as I catch up on a bunch of authors I've been meaning to read . . . and grant myself re-reads of China Mieville's The City and the City and Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night (ugh, how is the latter out of print? what is wrong with people?). Here's my wishlist:
Ken Bruen, The Guards
Jim Butcher, Storm Front (Dresden Files #1)
Alafair Burke, Never Tell (this one is an ARC, out in June)
Tana French, The Likeness
John Green, Paper Towns
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Scott Phillips, The Adjustment
Lauren Willig, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
01 February 2012
Romance February II: The Quickening Boogalo: This Time It's Personal. IN SPACE
For all those waiting breathlessly for the second annual installment of Romance February--in which I read more romance novels than usual, and also your regularly scheduled bunch of stuff--herewith, The List!
- Gold Rush Bride, Debra Lee Brown
- Untouched, Anna Campbell
- Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase
- A Night to Surrender, Tessa Dare
- The Duke Is Mine, Eloisa James
- To Wed a Wild Lord, Sabrina Jeffries
- Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
- The Dangerous Viscount, Miranda Neville
- Mistress By Marriage, Maggie Robinson
- Not Quite a Husband, Sherry Thomas
16 November 2010
Eyes on the prize.
So today it turns out I'd rather read a book (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Super great) than write about it.
(Also, the update sched is going to change as I've job changes in the works again--will try to stick to twice a week, though, as that jives roughly with my reading pace.)
(Also, the update sched is going to change as I've job changes in the works again--will try to stick to twice a week, though, as that jives roughly with my reading pace.)
23 October 2010
An Internet pinky-swear.
I make a contract with you, my ten-and-possibly-more readers: for as long as my days off are Tuesdays and Saturdays, I’ll meet you here, to talk about books, as I read them and immediately after, before I forget all I wanted to say about them, and have to reel off another apologetic, amateurish, “in brief” post like, uh, this one. I know I can do it: just look back at the sometimes 1000-word+ reviews I wrote for Watermark’s weekly newsletter. Of course, for those I had free sandwiches as incentive. SAAAANDWICHES.
The Scar, China Mieville: the second novel set in the Bas-Lag world of Perdido Street Station; this one's set in a floating outlaw city called Armada. If you don't count Moby-Dick, which of course you should, it's the best sea-quest novel I've ever read...once I get a hold of Iron Council, I promise you a lengthy essay about Mieville's evolving use of the city--with every novel I've read fictional metropolises (Perdido's New Crobuzon, Scar's Armada, The City & the City's Beszel/Ul Quoma) close in on "real' ones, with the shadow-London of Un Lun Dun a crucial link to Kraken's setting in a richly reimagined London proper. (Although I hear Iron Council's a Western, so it may throw a wrench in the works--if so, like all good critics, I shall simply ignore it.)
Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre: I'm fascinated by old-timey popular literature, especially the high-strung gothic novel, but this one was just OK. Not sure how it would have come off had Oxford World Classics not made the stupendous blunder of giving away the huge twist on the second-to-last page on the back of the book. SERIOUSLY.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller & Jamestown, Matthew Sharpe: Dystopia ahoy! I might owe myself an essay on why I find these so fascinating, but I think it's just that I love thought-experiments in general and have a generally fatalistic view of the world. Of these two, Canticle was much, much better, using the throughline of the Catholic Church (speaking of generally fatalistic) to link three novellas through a millennium, **SPOILER ALERT FOR A 50-YEAR-BOOK** (mouseover for details, since if you're like me you can never successfully skip text without reading it). Jamestown, a near-future retelling of the founding of the titular settlement, was less successful (to me at least)--I can't quite put my finger on why, but I think it has to do with the too-similar idiolect of the many different POVs (the narrative switches with each chapter). Usually I can deal with stylistic repetition (especially if I like said style, and I liked Sharpe's quite a lot), and I rarely care about "believability" in terms of characters' thoughts and words, and in a book that's all about communication and its breakdowns, it actually makes sense for what should be wildly disparate to converge. So I've really no excuse but "I just did, OK" for coming away less than impressed. Please don't revoke my intellectual credentials.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman: Loved it--loved the premise (all the various multicultural lares and penates brought over by centuries of immigrants to the U.S., squaring up for a war with the new deities of Internet and Media), loved the execution. Once you've read it, head over to this great wiki of all the gods mentioned!
I also recently read Colson Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, which deals with racism and elevator inspection--no, really. Stepped it up out of the random-roll sched because it was this month's pick on The A.V. Club's book club (Wrapped Up in Books). Coming up in Tuesday's post: I actually read the A.V. Clubbers' essays, and try to make sense of the book myself!
(BTW: currently re-reading Connie Willis' Blackout, which ended cliffhangingly, since All Clear FINALLY came out this week!!! Will talk about both together, as they're really one v. long book, but it'll take me a while to get through. And then I'll be sad they're over.)
The Scar, China Mieville: the second novel set in the Bas-Lag world of Perdido Street Station; this one's set in a floating outlaw city called Armada. If you don't count Moby-Dick, which of course you should, it's the best sea-quest novel I've ever read...once I get a hold of Iron Council, I promise you a lengthy essay about Mieville's evolving use of the city--with every novel I've read fictional metropolises (Perdido's New Crobuzon, Scar's Armada, The City & the City's Beszel/Ul Quoma) close in on "real' ones, with the shadow-London of Un Lun Dun a crucial link to Kraken's setting in a richly reimagined London proper. (Although I hear Iron Council's a Western, so it may throw a wrench in the works--if so, like all good critics, I shall simply ignore it.)
Zofloya, or The Moor, Charlotte Dacre: I'm fascinated by old-timey popular literature, especially the high-strung gothic novel, but this one was just OK. Not sure how it would have come off had Oxford World Classics not made the stupendous blunder of giving away the huge twist on the second-to-last page on the back of the book. SERIOUSLY.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller & Jamestown, Matthew Sharpe: Dystopia ahoy! I might owe myself an essay on why I find these so fascinating, but I think it's just that I love thought-experiments in general and have a generally fatalistic view of the world. Of these two, Canticle was much, much better, using the throughline of the Catholic Church (speaking of generally fatalistic) to link three novellas through a millennium, **SPOILER ALERT FOR A 50-YEAR-BOOK** (mouseover for details, since if you're like me you can never successfully skip text without reading it). Jamestown, a near-future retelling of the founding of the titular settlement, was less successful (to me at least)--I can't quite put my finger on why, but I think it has to do with the too-similar idiolect of the many different POVs (the narrative switches with each chapter). Usually I can deal with stylistic repetition (especially if I like said style, and I liked Sharpe's quite a lot), and I rarely care about "believability" in terms of characters' thoughts and words, and in a book that's all about communication and its breakdowns, it actually makes sense for what should be wildly disparate to converge. So I've really no excuse but "I just did, OK" for coming away less than impressed. Please don't revoke my intellectual credentials.
American Gods, Neil Gaiman: Loved it--loved the premise (all the various multicultural lares and penates brought over by centuries of immigrants to the U.S., squaring up for a war with the new deities of Internet and Media), loved the execution. Once you've read it, head over to this great wiki of all the gods mentioned!
I also recently read Colson Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, which deals with racism and elevator inspection--no, really. Stepped it up out of the random-roll sched because it was this month's pick on The A.V. Club's book club (Wrapped Up in Books). Coming up in Tuesday's post: I actually read the A.V. Clubbers' essays, and try to make sense of the book myself!
(BTW: currently re-reading Connie Willis' Blackout, which ended cliffhangingly, since All Clear FINALLY came out this week!!! Will talk about both together, as they're really one v. long book, but it'll take me a while to get through. And then I'll be sad they're over.)
05 February 2009
Overpacking
I'm headed to San Francisco and Santa Cruz till the 12th, and while I'm only bringing three pairs of shoes (flats, tennis shoes, and boots, all black--oh, OK, and a pair of horrid white Dyeables flats for Zombie Prom), I've got eight books in my trusty/huge Hello Kitty shoulder bag:
- Snake Catcher
- The Book of Dead Philosophers
- Smile As They Bow, Nu Nu Yi: the first work by an author living in Burma to be published in the U.S., it's about (the cultural equivalent of) drag queens.
- The Possession of Mr. Cave, Matt Haig: I read and loved his The Labrador Pact last March--a heartbreaking tale narrated by a dog trying vainly to keep his human family together. This one's out next month.
- On Beauty, Zadie Smith: White Teeth is a fave; this one I got below cost cause it was all shelf-worn.
- Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link: Ten of her stories are recollected for YA readers in last year's Pretty Monsters, and they are jaw-dropping: glorious, Borgesian horror/fantasy. "Magic for Beginners" is one of the best things I've ever read.
- To The Wedding, John Berger: Recommended by my former co-worker Jason.
- Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, Bill Schutt: Well, I am going to Zombie Prom, after all.
- Also: issues 20-22 of the Buffy Season 8 comics, which feature a Big Bad called "Twilight." I'd say Joss Whedon is a genius, but I think that goes without saying anymore, right?
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