The Antepenultimate Shelf

Booking Through....

2012-01-21T17:24:00.000-08:00

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read?
First thing in the morning when I don't have to get up, or anytime after dinner until I go to sleep.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.)
If I have to go to work, no. Actually, I always read things online in the morning while I eat(comics, blogposts, etc.) but I'm not sure if I'd count that as "reading."

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.)
French toast. Hands down, no contest.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read?
Now that I've started knitting, it varys a lot more. 2-8 for a normal day. Maybe more on some days, never less.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago?
I read much much much less than I did 10 years ago. That would be senior year of highschool which was a lot of homework, but I put more effort into cramming reading into all my free time. Example, now I can't read in the car because I'm actually driving the car. I don't read on car trips, much, either, because there's only two of us.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader?
No. I can skim things quickly, but it doesn't really register and it doesn't sink in.

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Teleportation.

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go?
Not anymore. Now I spend a lot of time carrying books because I work in a library. I carry my Kindle around more than I carry books around, but that's mostly because I'm mooching internet.

9. What KIND of book?
These days, usually a mystery.

10. How old were you when you got your first library card?
Wow. Small! I know I could write my name, so probably around 5? If you're familiar with LFPL, my first one was... yellow? I lost it at some point and ended up with one of the ones with a wacky book on it. That would be sometime after the peach ones, but before the current white ones. (I want a white one, because then I could put it on my keychain.)

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?)
I can't really say. I have quite a few disintegrating paperbacks from the 60s and 70s. Some of my favorite anthologies have stories that date before the last turn of the century. As far as longest in the collection... most of those would be Anne McCaffrey's that I absorbed from my parents in 5th grade. ~~I don't think any of the ones I have with me here in Blacksburg date back farther than mid-college.~~
Edited: I take that back. I have my lurid purple book Wise Women, which is folktales and fairytales from around the world with female protagonists. I have had that for a long time. Elementary school sometime, maybe. It build a foundation for reading obsessions that started c.Fall 2006.

12. Do you read in bed?
Of course.

13. Do you write in your books?
Only textbooks and, of those, only the ones that are fiction. I used to dog-ear the pages like crazy to mark bits that I like, but I've found that if I don't remember the book well enough to find the bit I want, I should probably just reread it anyway.

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be?
Read things that you want to read and things that you enjoy, not what you "should" read. I read sci-fi stuff when I was too young to get a whole lot out of it. So what? I enjoyed them. I read things with sex in them. So what? I didn't really notice it at the time. Recently, I've really enjoyed reading YA and various levels of children's literature. So what? I basically skipped the YA section of the library/bookstore when I was that age (admittedly it was a lot smaller then). I read Hamlet when I was in 7th grade because another book I read quoted bits. Did I miss a lot of what was going on? Yes. So what, it was still something I enjoyed reading.
Hm, this can pretty much be summed up as "Go for it!"

Summation

2011-12-25T15:34:00.000-08:00

The year is nearly over, so here is my review of books in my life this year. Bullet point style.

Started off this year with a Kindle and an Amazon.com shopping spree instead of my usual book binge. Most of the acquisitions this year have been e-books.
Speaking of binges, purged a lot of my collection in preparation for a move to a different state.
There are no bookstores in the town I moved to, other than the ones for textbooks. No joke.
As far as secondhand books, there's one store devoted to it and a Goodwill. I am filling in some books that I either got rid of before or that I have always wanted to read/own.
The library is small but fairly good. And Overdrive books on the Kindle are easy to download and are going to save my butt on fines.

Awesome books of the year include:

Kraken. About squids, octopods, and cuttlefish.
Predators I have known, by Alan Dean Foster
Any of the Father Brown books. Sister Fidelma was... ok. Too much repetition of basic facts from book to book. Brother Cadfael is also awesome, but easy to overdose on. Best read singly or two at a time.
Arsene Lupin is showing a lot of promise.
Hunger Games. 'Nuff said.
Julia Quinn had a very sweet and funny romance... I forget the title but it was blue.

Booking: Reading aloud

2011-09-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

1. What do you think of reading aloud/being read to? Does it bring back memories of your childhood? Your children’s childhood?
2. Does this affect the way you feel about audio books?
3. Do you now have times when you read aloud or are read to?

I love being read to. Always have. My dad transitioned to novels at some point when he was reading to me. Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, after The Hobbit was too intense. I know there was also some Roald Dahl in there. Amelia Bedelia, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Auntie Mame!
Um, back to the topic. Why yes, it does remind me of being read to. No kids of my own to read to yet, but hopefully someday....

I have mixed feelings about audiobooks. I can't get into the idea of them, but I really do like being read to...

Sometimes I read things to my husband (the Elephant's Child) and he reads me news and politics and economics crap. Not bad, just not what I'm interested in, mostly.

Catching up

2011-09-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

I'm going to catch up on Booking Through Thursday, all at once, keeping my answers simple (ha!).

Sometimes I feel like the only person I know who finds reading history fascinating. It’s so full of amazing-yet-true stories of people driven to the edge and how they reacted to it. I keep telling friends that a good history book (as opposed to some of those textbooks in school that are all lists and dates) does everything a good novel does–it grips you with real characters doing amazing things.
Am I REALLY the only person who feels this way? When is the last time you read a history book? Historical biography? You know, something that took place in the past but was REAL.

I just finished reading Devil in the White City. So very recently. Within the past year, I've also read that salt book and The Immortal Henrietta Lacks. I have a few others in queue. This is a lot of nonfiction for me, but I've really been enjoying it.

While my town dries out of record-setting, epic flooding from Hurricane Irene, let me ask you:
What’s your book with weather events? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Blizzards? Real? Fiction? Doesn’t matter … weather comes up a lot in books, so there’s got to be a favorite somewhere, huh?

The first weather that comes to mind is from Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage trilogy. Mainly because I read those books many many many times when I was around the age of 13. Very romantic and dramatic and sad.

What are you reading now?
Would you recommend it?
And what’s next?

I'm in between at the moment. I'm planning on rereading one of Brian Jaques' Redwall books, plus trying to pick up a few that I've missed along the way. I also have the second two of James Patterson's Maximum Ride series. Those are all the library books in queue. On the Kindle, I have lot, but the first one is The Help.

Have you ever finished a book and loved it so much you went right back and started re-reading it again?
(And obviously, if so, we want titles!)

I did this most recently with Laurie R. King's The Pirate King. I tend to do that with all her new books, actually. There are assorted others that I've done this with on the first time around, maybe Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series, can't really think of specifics at the moment.

Do you carry books with you when you’re out and about in the world?
And, do you ever try to hide the covers?

I carry books around a lot less than I once did. Not being able to read in the car (because I'm the one driving the car) has a lot to do with the change.
I never hide the covers. If I'm that embarrassed to be reading a book in public, I don't take it out of the house.

Repeats

2011-09-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

What’s the first book that you ever read more than once? (I’m assuming there’s at least one.)

Some of my favorite short chapterbooks that I reread when I was little were the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. I'm sure there are picture books or something that I've reread more, but this series is the first one that I can clearly remember picking out at the library over and over and over again.

What book have you read the most times? And–how many?

I reread things almost constantly. I'll pick something off the shelves to read inbetween library books, hear something that sparks up a connection with a favorite story or character... all sorts of reasons. My most reread authors are Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, and Laurie R. King.

In particular the following:

Dragonsong, by Anne McCaffrey--my father read it to me when I was four, and again once when I was a little older. I know I was rereading it at least once a year from 5th grade all the way through college.

Folly, by Laurie R. King-- I enjoy everything by this author, but this book has such a compelling main character, I keep going back (re-reading right now, in fact). How many books do you know that are written about a woman in her 40's, trying to rebuild a house on an island, and her life at the same time? Oh yeah, she also has bouts of severe depression that cause breaks with reality. I don't want to give Rae Newborn away to you, so let's just say that what I love about her the most is that when Laurie R. King writes about her, you're not sorry for her. Yeah, her life has sucked in various ways and it's awful. What the reader feels is awe. Awe for the things that the human spirit can overcome, its resiliency.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King-- The whole Mary Russell series is one that I enjoy, but I always come back again and again to the first one. (Really looking forward to Pirate King. Five days!)

When I want something with magic in it, I always head towards Mercedes Lackey. She's written tons of books and the ones I enjoy the most have shifted over the years. At one point it was the Last Herald Mage trilogy, hands down. Recently I've preferred some of her other series more. But one of the best is always The Black Gryphon. It's the first of another trilogy (nearly all the Valdemar books are published that way) and I've read it so many times that my favorite chapter (5) fell out of my hardback copy.

There are a lot more that I reread, but nothing touches these books. They will always have a place on my bookshelf (physical and digital).

Booking it

2011-07-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

Since my dog is turning 10 today … what animal-related books have you read? Which do you love? Do you have a favorite literary dog? (Snoopy, anyone?)

I don't know if you'd count Brian Jaques's Redwall series, but I loved those when I was around the age of 10.
Non-fantastical animals that I loved (still love) are Marguerite Henry's horse books. Particularly King of the Wind. I love that book particularly. The book starts out talking not about the Godolphin Arabian (the titular King of the Wind), but about his descendant Man o'War. If you're in Lexington, Kentucky, you can be assured that the street is named after the horse, not a jellyfish, as had once been suggested to me by some classmates who were clearly not from around here. As someone who grew up going to the Derby Museum at least once a year with school, and spending the first Saturday in May glued to the TV... well, it makes sense to be a bit obsessed with horses.

My favorite dog is definitely Mutt.

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In other news, I have all (every single one) of my books packed up, either in storage to be moved, or stored for the foreseeable future.

Booking Through Thursday

2011-06-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

What’s the largest your personal library has ever been? What’s the greatest number of books you’ve ever owned at one time? (Estimates are fine.)
Is your collection NOW the biggest it’s ever been? Or have you down-sized?
What’s the fewest number of books you’ve ever owned (not counting your pre-reading years)?

Probably the largest my personal library has been was what it was once I moved back home a year and a half ago.
I've been working on the downsizing. I've gotten rid of 8-ish bags of books. Each bag holds around 30 books, so I'm down around 240 from when I started. Given that, I'm estimating that the original collection was around three thousand? Maybe four thousand? It's hard to say since so many of them came out of storage boxes, were divided into new keep or store-again boxes, and all of the boxes put into storage until our upcoming move to Virginia. I'd say that less than a thousand are going with us, currently.
The smallest my personal library has ever been was when I was studying abroad in Spain. (I won't address any of the time I lived in Lexingon, it's not too far from Louisville so the separated bits still counted as one collection). I came with two fiction books, two Spanish-English dictionaries and my 501 verb book. I bought books for classes (1 poetry anthology, 4 novel/short story collections, 1 art book, 1 GGM book, 1 Jose Saramago) and was given 2 other ones (Spanish-Spanish dictionary, their version of a verb book).
One of the first things I did when I found the Corte Ingles was to buy a copy of Murder on the Orient Express... in Spanish. I accumulated two Anne McCaffrey books in Spanish (still have them, never getting rid of them), one Terry Pratchett that I don't think translated well, and a copy of Laurie R. King's The Game that I bought in an airport in Portugal. Oh, and a copy of Paradise by Judith McNaught that a friend gave me when I visited her in France. I think I read a book a day when I was staying with her-- it was like water on dry ground.

It was a rough semester. I ended up reading all of the written-in-English books half a dozen times. I read all of my class books cover to cover, even the parts that weren't assigned. Right when I was getting ready to leave I found a used bookstore run by a lady from England that accepted things in trade. My quality of life would have been a lot higher if I'd known that earlier.

So here's a PSA:
Petra's International Bookshop
Hours: 11AM to 9PM Monday thru Saturday
c/Campomanes 13
28013 Madrid
info@petrasbookshop.com

Summer Reading

2011-06-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Things I want/plan to read:

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
any of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson
Predators I Have Known, by Alan Dean Foster (would explain a lot about his Mid-World books)
Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George (by recommendation)
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde (would be a reread, I want to get to the rest of them eventually)
Urban homesteading : heirloom skills for sustainable living, by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume
Lots of books on houses, interior design, gardening, cooking (the prospect of having my own apartment again has triggered nesting urges and addictions to Offbeat Home and HGTV)
More Miss Zukas mysteries, if I can find/afford them.

Checked out right now:

Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel, by Janet Evanovich (eeeeee!)
Several random books of cross-stitch patterns
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly (I like the cover)
Threads and Flames, by Esther Friesner(want to know more about the event, love the author)

A few things I already read:

I am Number Four, by Pittacus Lore (meh)
Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J.K. Rowling
several Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne (3 or 4, plus short stories)
Young Warriors : Stories of Strength, Tamora Pierce and Josepha Sherman, eds.
Some Guardian of GaHoole book (unimpressed)
Naked Heat, by Richard Castle (love the show, love Nathan Fillion)
Heat Wave, by Richard Castle (the books are fun, but only because of the show)

Summer Re-reads:

Lord Peter, by Dorothy Sayers
Guards, Guards!, by Terry Pratchett (amazing man)
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, by Donna Andrews
Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, by Donna Andrews

Getting it right? Yeah, right.

2011-04-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

I would like to write something to every person on the internet who is already complaining about the Hunger Games movie.

Dear people on the internet:

You've been complaining like crazy that Jennifer Lawrence was cast as Katniss Everdeen for the Hunger Games movie. You say the reason you're complaining is because "the book says she had black hair and olive skin. Jennifer Lawrence is blonde, and too old, you're not doing what the author wrote. OMFG! " I admit to some paraphrasing there.

Having just read The Lighting Thief, what I want to know is this: why is following what the author wrote only important when it involves people you pick? If having a movie that agrees with the book is important, don't you think you should've been complaining about that Percy Jackson movie too?

Here are some things you didn't care about:
1) The kids in the book are 6th grade age (12 years old), the movie made them a good 4 or 5 years older. Not just having the actors older-- pretty common in movies-- but making the characters older.
2) Annabelle had blond hair, not dark hair. I don't remember people making a big deal about that one.

What I'm trying to say is that everyone complaining should be consistent. Complain about every instance of "bad" casting, including when the blondes become brunettes. Including making characters older. Otherwise just say you think there are too many white people and blondes in movies. Say you don't like it when someone plays a younger character.* (Does anyone ever complain about the opposite?)

Don't hide behind the text. The text is not what you're really worried about. Maybe you should talk about that instead.

* Personally, my vote is to match the character with a good actor for the part, with some attempt to get the look right. Major points if families end up looking related to eachother, or if a younger version looks like the older/adult version of the same character.
Real fans get a pass. They will always care about the text and every tiny change (ask me how I feel about the proposed Anne McCaffrey movie).

2011-04-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

Confession time: even though I got married nearly two years ago, I'm still addicted to Offbeat Bride. And now the spinoffs Offbeat Mama and Offbeat Home.

Offbeat Bride originally started as a way to publicize a book and then took on a life of its own. It's a great place to go look at fabulous pictures of weddings that you'd never have. Or in my case, to show your mom so she'll stop complaining about the things you want to do at your wedding. A year(give or take) ago Offbeat Mama spun off to provide the same sort of forum for those raising children, thinking about raising children, or sometimes just being the cool auntie.

And now there is Offbeat Home, which brings me to my point: SORTING YOUR BOOKS BY COLOR.

Photo by santos. Used under Creative Commons license.

In honor of National Library Month, the Offbeat Empire's been doing several library/books/bookshelf/librarian/etc. related things. Today's post about organizing your books by color (!!) is beautiful. No arguing about that.

But it would make me so crazy I can't even imagine.

This is not to say that my shelves are organized right now. The combination of moving out and then moving back scrambled everything. Half my books are still in storage and my mom stole a whole shelf, making it look like I'm a huge J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts fan. Add into that the weeding I'm doing, and my shelves look like the wreck of the Hesperus.

So my move in August gives me something else to look forward to: blank slate shelves. A new apartment means that all my books will have to come out of boxes and be put on shelves, fresh and clean and with no preconceived notions.

I think I'll stick with some version of my usual homebrew organizational system. I've never had enough non-fiction to organize by Dewey or LCC, though I usually try to separate that section out. Similarly, I usually have sections for picture books, YA, cookbooks. Other than that, books are arranged randomly by author based on what fits on each shelf. For instance, my Zelazny fit on the end of the shelf by Dana Stabenow. Or Robert Asprin ended up next to my mom's Nora Roberts. Height on the bookshelf is usually determined by how frequently I reread the books.
Within each author's section, the books are organized by series, and within the series by chronological order based on what happens within the world. Usually this corresponds roughly to order published, except when the authors want to make it difficult on me.

Should I try to be more organized after we move? Go to a system with all authors in alpha order?
Realistically I'll probably try to sort out a separate mystery section this time, and otherwise it'll be life as usual.

The unicorn of organization is wonderful to chase.

Wow, this is a beautiful book

2011-03-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

One of the Borders that is going out of business had a copy of this that I just couldn't resist.
Why?
1) I love pasta. This is full of recipes, including how to make your own at home. Definitely a lifetime goal of mine.

2) Even if you don't like pasta, this book is stunning. You can see the cover over there on the left, well each type of pasta inside is illustrated with those fabulous black and white images. Amazon has a couple pictures from inside the book, you should definitely check it out.

What you can't see online is that the book jacket is almost twice as large as a regular one, all decorated. I'm seriously considering framing it to hang in my dining room/area.

This isn't just a cookbook. You can use it as a coffee table book, display it. The food described in it might be delicious (it certainly reads that way) but this book is a work of art in and of itself.

2011-03-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this.

It isn't a great book. I can't decide if it's a good one.

This is the author's first foray into YA lit, she's probably better known for her book Small Acts of Sex and Electricity. I don't think that's the problem. Lyn, the main character, has a strong voice and is generally a believable character. The story has strong bones and is engaging.

I think the problem comes from author's lack of experience writing alternate realities.

The book is set in the present day, except in the post-Vietnam era gladiator clubs started up like Fight Clubs. Someone thought the idea was cool and made it into a televised and codified sport, sort of like mixed martial arts fighting. Except with lots of capital-T-Tradition, e.x. Gladiator Wives can only marry seven gladiators and then can't marry any more or that the offspring must attend matches starting at age four (boys) or five (girls). They were strappy sandals and boots, tunics, leather. There are afterschool clubs for boys interested in training to become gladiators. Successful gladiators have endorsements, they're seen everywhere, become movie stars, are hounded by paparazzi, start trends, and have a huge impact on current culture.

How do I know all this? The author told me.

In all other ways, the world is identical to our own. Natalie Portman started in a movie adaptation of V for Vendetta. Steve Carrell made that stupid movie with animals in it. The TV show American Gladiators still existed. Name an event, it happened, including 9/11.There are a few exceptions: Second Life seems to be more popular and the Living machine. Living is sort of like the holodeck on Star Trek. The machine projects people (historical figures, celebrities living or dead) in a very realistic manner. Visually indistinguishable from a real person, with some limited physical interaction. Personality-wise Living people are very close approximations to the real individual, with some self-awareness, but with a slight tendency towards repetition.

I'd be more impressed with these bits of world building, except both central to resolution of the main conflict in the story. Outside of that, no originality, no attempt to show (not tell) about the impact that the resurrection of gladiatorial culture has had on US culture at large. The movie Gladiator still starred Russell Crowe, and it wasn't any more popular in the book than in reality. The company running the gladiatorial games had to pay to get it rerun with commercials, like on TNT.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. I want the author to blend her world into a new reality, not just graft it on to what already exists. If you're changing the world, shouldn't it.. I don't know.. change?

Actually, I take it back. There are also War Tickets. You bet on where the US will go to war, with 2% of "the proceeds go[ing] to fight terrorism here and abroad." The only real way this seems to tie into the story is to show that the world is on the brink of war (when isn't it?) and to let the main character say she's a pacifist. Which she brings up frequently. Kind of funny, especially when her solution to all her problems is a fight to the death, and she talks about how she's enjoyed training in the past. Still, other than that, Haines doesn't really develop the idea or take it anywhere interesting.

So three things, none of which really help define Haines' world. And too much of it is telling and not showing, which is just lazy writing. (That, BTW, is paraphrased from junior year high school English class. Not saying I can do it better, but then you don't see me trying to write books.)

---
A minor quibble is that there are no quotation marks. Instead a dash indicates conversation, which is distracting and I'm not really sure why Haines (or her editors?) chose to do it. The only other place I can remember running across this is in Spanish-language books I've read, not books purchased/published in the US.

Booking Through Thursday

2011-02-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?

I tend to prefer new books because I love how smooth and clean they are.
On the other hand, I love cloth-bound books and books with fun endpapers. Other than The Ladies of Grace Adieu, books from a university press or ones from a small press (like Larkspur Press), the only modern books with that sort of binding that I've run across are some Penguin classics. I'm definitely the sort who will buy a book just for the cover or the binding, and let me tell you, I have never come so close to owning a copy of Wuthering Heights.

I could sit here and post picture after picture of them all.I'll admit that some of the

patterns make more sense than others. Look at this edition of Tess of the D'Urbervilles. It has some sort of wheat-like grain, fitting in perfectly with some of the agricultural scenes in the books and some of Hardy's anti-industrialization themes.
The Divine Comedy has little dancing devils, A Tale of Two Cities has knitting, The Odyssey has a pattern of waves, I could keep going forever.

The only physical bookstore I found locally that keeps these in stock is, of course, Carmichael's. Gotta love it, even if it keeps trying to kill me with impulse buys. (They also have Larkspur Press books, which would be worth collecting. Beatiful, amazing books.)

Getting it right

2011-02-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about several series of books lately.

I just finished reading the first Hunger Games book. I really enjoyed it and thought it was well done. I want to read the next two. Luckily, I think they'll be good, but it seems that a lot of authors have problems with their follow through when they're writing more than one book or more than one character in a world.

I don't think any of them get it entirely right. Even my favorites.

Mercedes Lackey
Though all the characters may not be to a particular reader's taste, Lackey is good enough at world building that it usually carries the books through. That said, sometimes one has to wonder why she write in trilogies so much. The most recent Valdemar trilogy is a perfect example of a trilogy that hasn't quite gelled, especially book 2. Writing a younger character in a long running series like that can alienate older readers, but I mostly enjoy YA and anyone familiar with the author would know that she has a tendency towards angsty almost-adults. Part of the problem is that the writing seems a little sloppy. Lots of phrases repeated word for word through the book, not as much insight into the character.
I think ML's most successful series is the Free Bards. Lots of strong and interesting characters, a diversity of storylines (ok, except for the romance that brings two main characters together) and not a lot of revisiting previous characters or places.

Anne McCaffrey
She's been my favorite author since my dad read Dragonsong to me when I was four. That said, Pern is not her best series. And she should never have let her son write on his own in her world. The first one was ok, but now he can't write anything without a plague in it.
I think McCaffrey's strongest series is the Brainship series. Strong co-authors made for an interesting variety of characters and (I think this is the key) she stopped writing them. Her best work seems to be in the shorter series. There are only two books in the Coelura world, though one is more a novella. The PeeTayBee books work very well with the first three, the next two or three are decent but not as compelling.

An author that really had potential for me was Maria V. Snyder who has two series in the same world. The first is the Study books (Poison, Magic,Fire). I thought they were well written, an interesting character in an interesting world. Then came the Glass books (Storm, Sea, Spy). Where Yelena is a strong person who perseveres through a variety of troubles self-made or thrust upon her, Opal is someone who keeps making the same stupid mistake over and over. Both are kidnapped and tortured, betrayed by those they should be able to rely on, considered suspicious by the rulers of their country, untrusted, and both end up falling in love with someone who caused a lot of their problems. Yelena falls in love with the man who made her a food taster and poisoned her into obedience, which ends up working because they are both complicated characters in complicated situations. Opal's guy tortured her for weeks, was responsible for her sister's death, kidnapped and tortured her again later, stole her actual boyfriend's body, had sex with her, tortured her again but worse this time. Not to mention that he lied to her repeatedly and did all he could to manipulate her feelings. This is all in the first two books. At the end of the second book, he's turned over a new leaf, he loves Opal and wants to help her. In the third book, she ends up trusting him, which in the previous books ended in screaming torture, but in this book it ended in marriage. I don't entirely reject the possibility that someone could reform, but that is a very long way to go.
The whole thing makes me think that Snyder's been in some abusive relationships in the past and never quite gotten over it. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd hesitate to recommend her books at all, now. (Which reminds me, I need to figure out how to change that Amazon widget.)

I wonder, what do you do when an author lets you down? Stop reading them? Give up on a series, but not the author? Do you still recommend the books?

Booking Through

2011-01-23T22:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you're familiar with Booking Through Thursday. Basically it's a blog/meme generator. A question is posed every Thursday, people post links to their answers.

Every so often, I feel like answering.

So this week was:
Even I read things other than books from time to time … like, Magazines! What magazines/journals do you read?

I am a huge fan of Cook's Illustrated, and as a corollary America's Test Kitchen. I had a subscription to Gourmet before it died, and let me tell you, that subscription to Radar that they substituted for the rest of my run of Gourmet was the biggest waste of paper I've ever had show up in my mailbox. At least junk-mail can be used as scratch paper by the phone.

I also had a subscription to the Smithsonian magazine that might have lapsed. I like reading informational things now that I don't sit in class all day.

Reassessing

2011-01-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

This post's title has several meanings for me.

1)I need to reassess using this blog.
I obviously didn't do a great job of keeping up with it last year. But I also screwed up my reading list in general. I'll post it later, but at this point it was somewhere around 60-something new books and 70-something rereads. That's as of around mid-November. Between a family crisis and general holiday dreck the list took back seat. I'm not keeping one this year, so maybe here is the place to write about books.

2) I've been reassessing my relationship with physical books.
Specifically, I got a Kindle for Christmas. I know, I know, especially after having my last post here be about cover art. Did you know most of the amazon books skip straight to the content without showing the cover of the book? Kind of a bummer. But on the whole, I'm very happy with my Kindle. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles (no 3G, just regular wireless), but the leather cover (with a light!) does a good job of mimicking the weight of a real book.
One of the big reasons to actually get it was that it is far to difficult to move with all the books I own. The weight alone makes a huge difference, so I'll be able to keep from buying new physical books. I know, I know, use the library. But what about the new ones hot off the press? The ones that are checked out? Lost? The ones I want to pick up right before bedtime? Though it is true that, like the library, the Kindle only goes so far. A lot of the books are overpriced and a lot of what I want isn't available. I think the overlap will work.
It is also very hard to have most of my books in storage. I need to reduce the overall volume of books down to ones I can't part with. Which leads to...

3) I need to reassess my relationship with a couple thousand books.
Some I'll keep: signed books, books I reread on a yearly basis, books I can't bear to part with.
I'm hoping that last one won't be a huge list. The children's books (over half are library discards) are inviolate.

I'm starting with what was left in my room. Anthologies, mostly, that I didn't take with me last time I moved out. I'll figure out a sort of triage for them. Something to think about. And soon, because we'll be moving again in a few months. I can't reread all of them, there's not enough time.
Should I keep the ones I haven't read yet?
What about ones I love that I have multiple copies of? Get rid of the trade copy, keep the hardback? Keep the whole collection by favorite writer X, or should I only keep the ones that I actually like? If it was hard to find, but I don't really want it, should I keep it? Out of print?
Too many questions...

It's Cover

2010-07-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

You probably can't tell from what I've written here, but the books that I love the best (and that I grew up reading ) are old SciFi and fantasy novels. A lot of the first ones I picked up were ones that my parents had on their shelves.

This meant that a nine-year-old me took books with Frank Frazetta cover art to school. If you're not familiar, a typical example is over there on the right. They all have a look to them, muscular men and curvy half-naked women.

The criticism didn't get to me too much, and I still love Frazetta's art to the extent that I picked it for my calendar last year. But it did lead me to take a more critical approach to the cover art for books that I was reading and ones that I ended up buying.

Favorites:

The only book I ever saw and HAD TO OWN. NOW!!!! was one of the original print-runs of The Ladies of Grace Adieu, by Susanna Clarke (of Jonothan Strange and Mr. Norell fame).

The cover of Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey. I love Rowena's art on the newer covers, but they'll never have the place in my heart that this one holds.

The new covers for Laurie R. King's Mary Russell books. They look sort of like stained glass and are much better than the ones they had at one point that were the back of a character with the patterns on her robe changing from book to book. Not distinctive, hard to tell one from the other.

Jellicoe Road's cover shows something that is essential to the story, but it doesn't actually give away any of the story, or try to give you a picture of any of the main characters. That's why I love it. A lot of books screw up by having images of characters on them.

Anything that Charles Vess or Dave McKean have touched. Visually stunning, though the two of them are both very different.

Least Favorites:

God help me, I love Mercedes Lackey's writing, but this most recent book is very pink. And it get's worse, the endpapers are a violently 80's lime green. And the main character is blonde, not a brunette. I shudder.
Actually that whole series is sort of ridiculous, but given that the publisher, Luna, is an imprint of Harlequin, I usually give them a pass.
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. It's just a title, there's nothing interesting there.
Anything holographic. It just looks cheesy.

I could go on forever, and I probably will at some point.

For criticism of book covers, I love to check out these two blogs: Awful Library Books and Good Show Sir. The only problem with the latter blog is that occasionally I really want to delurk and protest about how the covers make sense, though maybe they're poorly realized.

Obsessions

2010-07-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to reread Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening, and so I thought to recommend it to the world at large.

I don't normally read much by the way of non-fiction. Sci-fi, fantasy, comic fantasy, and more recently mysteries. But reading this book a couple of months ago started me on a non-fiction kick that I can't seem to shake.

This book came to my attention through another book, a comic mystery by Donna Andrews, Swan for the Money. Her character Meg Langslow deserves her own post, but right now I'll settle for saying that one thing I love is that Ms. Andrews researches all the situations she gets Meg into. So in Swan for the Money, Meg's parents drag her into their new obsession: roses. If Ms. Andrews had never read Otherwise, Meg would never have had to mess with roses, and I would have missed reading a fabulous book.
The most likely reason for the public library to have this book is because one of the rosarians (that's the fancy term for rose fanciers) featured in it once lived in Louisville; she talks about how roses that thrived around here do poorly in her new West Coast garden. Whatever the reason, I'm glad they had it.

In Otherwise, Aurelia Scott talks about her introduction to the world of the rosarians. She starts with talking to them in their gardens, about their roses, about how they protect blossoms, fertilize and compost, and keep the winter from killing the more delicate plants. She meets people who breed their own new varieties of hybrid teas in green houses and people who drive along back-roads searching for lost varieties of old garden roses. She visits nurseries and botanical gardens.

But most fascinatingly, she visits an actual rose competition, where individual blooms are groomed and win trophies. The whole point of this book is to talk about competitive rose gardening. The average person might have a rose bush, maybe two in their garden. Certainly not hundreds. They don't keep them wrapped in pantyhose to avoid cross-pollination, or stick cut up milk jugs all over them to protect blooms that might end up being the perfect bloom for a competition. Before reading this book, I would never have imagined that grooming roses at competitions would involve cotton-swabs.

The roses in this book are not your average flower, and the people are not your average gardeners. That's what makes the book so much fun to read; it is a window into a new place, one that can be visited very easily. I know that I'll be looking at the rose competition a little differently the next time I pass that table at the state fair.

It's all about the cells

2010-05-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Recently I had a birthday, which is wonderful for my reading because it means a trip to the bookstore. (New books! Not just new-to-me, but actually new-from-the-store books that were recently released!)

One of the books I picked up was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. You might have heard the author's interview a while back on NPR. I did, it's why I picked up a copy. (It's worth a listen, if you have a little extra time).

Without Henrietta Lacks we might not have such things as a polio vaccine, most of the modern forms of chemotherapy, or any number of medicines. Her cancerous cells were harvested, becoming the first immortal line of human cells and they are still used by thousands of research facilities around the world.

One of the things that I like about this book is the way Skloot structured it. Each chapter is a different part of the story, with one chapter being about Henrietta as she lived and died, then the next one being about the research, then the next about Skloot's efforts to talk to Henrietta's family. By jumping around between the different time periods, the reader feels like s/he's following along with Skloot on her hunt to find out information about Henrietta Lacks, who is mostly just know as HeLa but sometimes identified as Helen Lane or Helen Larsen. It was difficult to get the information, to talk to the family, and to get a version of the book published that talked about the human side of Henrietta. The structure of the book lets the reader feel this, feel the journey that the author took to get to the point of finishing her book.

This hopscotching is sometimes a turn-off. My husband really doesn't like it, but then he's a very linear person. He's reading it mostly for the science, because he's heard of the HeLa cells. Like most people in the sciences, that's the only part of the story he's heard before; until now, Henrietta and her family's story wasn't available.

In the 1930's, when this story began, medical ethics weren't what they are today. It was a pre-Nuremberg, pre-Tuskegee world and people didn't really think about medical research and what was ethical for doctors to do. Henrietta's cells were taken from her with only the barest bones of consent, and there was no attempt at informing her about what would be done with them. She was a poor black woman on the charity ward, even if she had known what cells were it's unlikely that she would have understood why someone would want to grow them in a lab. Popular science was only just beginning to break into the news and even then sensationalist journalists got it wrong.

Who should read this: People interested in medical history, people interested in ethics. It's a moving story even if you aren't all that up on science, the author explains some of the complicated concepts in an accessible way.

National Infertility Awareness Week.

2010-04-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this because it is National Infertility Awareness Week, and it's not a topic most people think about.
I have yet to read this book, but I enjoy this woman's blog. Yes, it's called Stirrup Queens. There's a great website for the book, including an excerpt. I would also like to suggest the the archives over at a little pregnant if you'd like to know something about the firsthand experiences of those who are going/have gone through fertility problems.
Julie at a little pregnant has a great sense of humor, which helps the reader (and hopefully her) get through the tears that accompany her journey towards children. Not that the whole thing is a sobfest. There's also rage, worry, stress, joy, and tons of humor.

One of the things going on this week is project IF (IF for infertile and "if" for "what if")

The "if" I'm picking to write about is this one:

What if I never see that plus sign? What if this is it, waiting and hoping for the rest of my life?

Let me start here. I'm barely 26 and I've been married slightly less than a year. I'm mostly unemployed. Being pregnant is not something that I want to happen right now. I have no idea how fertile or infertile I am. I have never tried to get pregnant (or had a "whoopsie!" that was anywhere near possible).

But I still think/worry about this.
I do want at least one child, it's something I've been thinking about for a while now. I want to hold it and sing to it and read to it and hopefully not go too crazy while I'm watching it grow up.

There are no known fertility problems in my family. I know that if BC weren't around, I'd have a million siblings, and I don't think my husband's family had any problems with conceiving either. I haven't had endometriosis*, or an STI, or any sort of other gynecological problem. I have no reason to think I might have a problem.

Which, honestly, is probably why I'm concerned. There are more women out there than you would think who spent years worried about getting pregnant accidentally... and then they turn out to have fertility problems. I admit to peeing on the occasional little stick out of sheer paranoia** . And I think the universe has a sense of humor and it's not one of those nice senses of humor, it's the kind that laughs when you drop chocolate pudding on a white shirt. You're not expecting it, so the universe makes sure it happens. The one time I leave the house without an umbrella in the car? Rain. I forget to call, just that one time, about a hair appointment? I show up 45 minutes early, just too long to go somewhere without ending up late. So I can see myself having fertility problems in the future, provided I don't worry about them now.

Worry as a prophylactic for infertility? Sure, why not. It makes as much sense as not worrying about it so that you can get pregnant***.

*why is this word not in my spellcheck? It's sitting there underlined, looking wrong. The squiggles are so disconcerting that I can't tell if it is actually wrong or not. argh.

**My period was light! No cramps! My breasts are sensitive! I gained weight without changing my eating habit!I just read one of those articles talking about women who didn't know they were pregnant and then they turned out to be 5 months along!

*** I refer, of course, to the ever rage-inducing "You know, I bet if you just relax and stop worrying about it, you'll be pregnant in no time!"

For your info: http://www.resolve.org/infertility-overview/what-is-infertility/

I never saw a purple cow...

2010-03-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

I hate posting about incomplete series, which is one of the reasons I've not posted much lately. I'm either missing the last book of a triology, or the first book.

So I suppose I'll be writing about Dairy Queen, by Catherine Murdock. It's a standalone YA novel about a girl just shy of sixteen. DJ's two older brothers are local football stars gone on to college ball and greater things, so that when her father is injured she ends up running the family's Wisconsin dairy farm. Her mother is a teacher who has no free time because she's basically running the principal-less school, and DJ's younger brother helps where he can around his own schedule. DJ tries to balance running the farm and trying to be a "normal teenager" with a social life, with mixed results; as a favor to a family friend (and because she needs the help around the barn) she ends up training the rival school's quarterback and maybe even getting a crush on him.

I've never lived in a rural area, let alone on a farm, but that didn't prove to be a barrier to connecting with DJ and understanding what was going on in her life. A reality check with someone who did grow up in a rural place, on a farm, AND with real live cows (my husband, who is sitting next to me and mocking me for blogging), confirmed that this is indeed an accurate portrayal of farm life. It led to some fun anecdotes, which makes me think that this would be a wonderful class read to prompt personal narratives. Teachers do get tired of reading dead-grandmother stories, after all. I think this would also be good for city kids to read, and anybody who uses the term "fly over states." Don't even get me started on that one.

My favorite part about all of this is that it's a book with a teenaged female protagonist... without the angst. Yes, DJ leads just as complicated and emotionally convoluted a life as any other teenager. Her approach differs though, and the way she talks about things is the way she'd talk about them to someone she knows. The Schwenk family is not that great at communicating about the big things. Things that are a big deal are minimized; problems aren't discussed, just acknowledged and avoided. This makes DJ a bit of an unreliable narrator, but no less enjoyable.

I'd definitely reread this one. Five stars.

The Young Adventurers, Ltd.

2010-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

When a person thinks of Agatha Christie, it is usually Hercule Poirot they think of, or Miss Marple. That person might remember And Then There Were None (also published as Ten Little Indians).

But my favorite of Christie's recurring characters are the ones that are farther from the beaten path. Mr. Harley Quinn. Mr. Parker Pyne. Tommy and Tuppence.

It's this last duo that I want to tell you about. Tommy and Tuppence appear in two different novels by Christie, The Secret Adversary and N or M?. The first takes place a few years after the first World War, the second book is set some years later, fairly early in WWII.

In The Secret Adversary, Tommy and Tuppence are trying to find employment after the war. They're both very hard up and they play with the idea of going into business, doing whatever is needed. A man overhearing their conversation offers Tuppence a job, drawing the two into a search for the mysterious Jane Finn and some papers that could bring down the government.

N or M? begins with the patriotic pair frustrated by their rebuffed attempts to join the war effort. Tuppence is tired of being told that she's too old to be a VAD, and knitting balaclavas feels . Tommy was a twice-wounded soldier in the first war, and he can't even get a desk job helping with this one. Then an old friend comes to call. He needs help tracking down the leaders of the Fifth Column* in Britan, a man and a woman known only as N and M.
.
I think what appeals to me the most about these book is that the pair doesn't succeed because they are exceptionally gifted in the "little grey cells" department, or because they're unusually observant or perspicacious. Tuppence has flashes of insight and Tommy works best when he's in a tight spot. But mostly, they're lucky. Once they've been supplied with information by the established intelligence community, Tommy and Tuppence are turned loose to fend for themselves. They aren't experienced intelligence workers, but that's the very fact that allows them to succeed.

Tommy and Tuppence are perfect examples of the Christie Characters who live a normal, generally quiet life that satisfies them greatly. Every now and then they long for a little adventure and they get it. Christie's detectives always maintain that the most quotidian people are the ones who most strongly desire a little excitement. It's nice to see when they get it.

*The term "Fifth Column" comes from the Spanish Civil War of 1936, where a general said that his four columns of troops outside of Madrid would be supported by a fifth column of supporters from within the city. The term was used during the Second World War to mean a group of people who undermined a country from within, sometimes natives of the country, but also spies sent in by the country's enemies.

Porpoises

2010-02-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

For the past several years, I've kept track of my reading on what is basically a defunct lifejournal. Basically just a list of new books and, more recently, books I've reread. Usually without commentary.

Lately I've felt the need for commentary, so we'll see how this goes.

Here's my not-exactly-up-to-date-anymore list of what I've read this year:

Read:
1)The New Tea Companion : A guide to teas throughout the world, by Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson
2)The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, by Julia Quinn
3)Poison Study, by Maria V. Snyder (YA, Yelena book 1)
4)Magic Study, by Maria V. Snyder (YA, Yelena book 2)
5)Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Reread:
1) No Phule like an old Phule, by Robert Asprin with Peter J Heck (Phule's Company series)
2) Four and Twenty Blackbirds, by Mercedes Lackey (Bardic Voices, book 4)
3) The Holmes Dracula File, by Fred Saberhagen
4) The Oathbound, by Mercedes Lackey (Vows and Honor duology, book 1)
5) Magic's Promise, by Mercedes Lackey (Last Herald Mage, book 2)
6) Death by Water, by Kerry Greenwood (Phryne)

Commentary to follow, but I need to go make a chocolate cheesecake. Yum.

(And, yes, I am aware that the word in the title is not the right one. Bad puns, wordplay, I love all of it.)