bookshelves of doom

Not an Onion article:

Stephen King plots The Shining sequel.

Stephen, I love you. 

But I'm asking you.  Please.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.  LET IT BE.

ANOTHER ONE??

I really, truly thought that the title of the book had just been changed.  And the cover art.  And the publisher.  And the author.

But, no.  As if one Scarlet Letter sequel wasn't enough.

This turn of events makes me want to punch myself in the face.  Because then maybe I could ignore the heartache.  Ag.  Ag ag ag ag ag.

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Previously:  How NOT to pull me in with your advertising campaign, #24.

How NOT to pull me in with your advertising campaign, #24.

This blurb...

"Have you ever closed The Scarlet Letter and yearned to see what the future holds for Hester Prynne and her headstrong daughter Pearl?"

...makes me want to run screaming.  Is the Austen fanfiction not enough?  Must we really be subjected to Hawthorne fanfic, too?? 

OH, THE HUMANITY.

Sky Coyote: The Company, #2 -- Kage Baker

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Zeus, Inc. and what it does, see this post.

1699.  Facilitator Joseph, who has just spent many years with the Church in various roles -- not the least of which was serving with the Spanish Inquisition -- has been given a new assignment:  to appear to the Chumash people as their trickster god, Sky Coyote, and to convince them to avoid annihilation at the hands of the coming white men -- by leaving their own world forever.

Before even picking it up, I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy Sky Coyote as much as I'd enjoyed In the Garden of Iden.  For one thing, my love for the first book was due in part to Mendoza's voice.  For another, it seemed that the responses to this one were pretty mixed -- some people loved it, others said to skip it.

I'm glad that I didn't.  Because I fell squarely into the LOVE camp.  I think, actually, that I might even prefer Joseph's voice to Mendoza's -- though it might just be that I found his perspective more exciting.  Whatever the reason, poor Josh got an earful while I read this one, and then he got even more of an earful after I'd finished.  Blather city.

Major reason for the love:  Joseph's voice.  He's been around since the very beginning -- his father's cave paintings were some of the earliest works of art that the Company preserved -- and despite his cynicism (in regards to human nature and in regards to the Company) and despite his worries (about his current mission, about Mendoza, about the rapidly approaching future -- a future that he and the other immortals know very little about), his sense of humor remains intact, and his love of noir fiction often sneaks through into his dialogue and his description.

Some people, I think, may be put off by the extremely modern-sounding Chumash, but I loved that style choice -- I attributed it to Joseph's storytelling and to his translation, which made me enjoy it all the more.  But I could see how it would be a bit of a shock, especially when compared to the extremely different stylistic choices made in the first book. 

For me, this one wasn't really about the plot -- I didn't think it really mattered all that much.  Not a whole lot happened, really.  But I was so engrossed that I didn't even really realize that until I'd finished the book.  Because in Sky Coyote, Kage Baker really begins to lay out some of the dark, scary, shadowy aspects of the Company.  And suddenly, the existence of the immortal operatives seems very perilous -- not because of their work in our past, but because of their creators in our future.

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Book source:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Still.  So now I will ILL #3.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  How else will I ever hire the Company to bring back the dodo?

NBA finalists.

As I was on blog-world hiatus when the National Book Award finalists were announced, I wasn't sure if I was alone in thinking that the inclusion of David Small's Stitches on the Young People's list was surprising and a little bit annoying*.

So it was nice to see this blog post at NPR.

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*Not because there's anything remotely wrong with Stitches, of course.  But as it is on the YPL list, that means that a book that was actually published for Young People was cut to make room for it.  Which doesn't seem right.

The Magicians -- Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater isn't a very happy person.  He's brilliant and well-off, his parents are nice enough, though vague and mostly absent.  His two best friends, James and Julia, are happily dating, though Quentin wishes he was the one dating Julia.   

The world is grey and cold and boring and predictable.  Secretly, he dreams of magic.  He daydreams about Fillory, wishes it was real.

Fillory is a Narnia-ish (very, very Narnia-ish) fantasy world described in a series of children's books originally published in the 1930s.  Most people Quentin's age left them behind years and years ago, but he didn't.  He still returns to them -- when he's bored (which is often), when he's upset (ditto), when he wants to escape (again, ditto).

Then, after a death at his Princeton interview leads to an encounter with a strange paramedic leads to an invitation to apply to Brakebills, a school in upstate New York that specializes in, you guessed, magic:

This was everything he'd always wanted, the break he'd given up on years ago.  It was right in front of him.  He was finally on the other side, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass.  He was going to sign the papers and he was going to be a motherfucking magician.  Or what the hell else was he going to do with his life?

There was much chatter about The Magicians when it came out this summer.  It was touted as "fantasy for grown-ups", Harry Potter in the real world, Harry Potter in college.  It was described as original and epic and ground-breaking.

That's a whole lot of hype to live up to.

Is the hype accurate?  Well, as always, it depends on who you talk to.  The people doing the hyping, obviously, would say yes.  The people giving it one-star reviews at Amazon, obviously, would say no.

My opinion lands somewhere in the middle.  It was, for sure, a book that kept me reading -- I happily read all 400 pages in an afternoon.  As in any other fantasy novel set in a secret corner of our world, I enjoyed discovering it with Quentin:

Quentin was pretty sure that if he stood very still for a few seconds everything would snap back to normal.  He wondered if he was undergoing some dire neurological event.

I enjoyed most of the nods to previous works -- I didn't, as some readers have, see it as derivative -- because Quentin is such a fan, much of the book read like a tribute to fantasy-that-came-before.  And I loved the fact that the students took ideas for their offensive spells from D&D.

My major personal difficulty with the book boiled down to this:  Quentin Coldwater is not very likable.  He's selfish and apathetic, never happy with what he has, even when what he has is exactly what he originally thought he wanted.  He's the personification of the-grass-is-always-greener.  I never doubted him as a character -- he seemed very real to me -- but I didn't like him.  But I'm not sure if I was supposedto like him.  If this was a book about Magic in the Real World, it stands to reason that the hero wouldn't just not be heroic -- he wouldn't be a hero.  And, ultimately, I didn't see him as one.  He was just a protagonist.  Which, really, made sense.

Oddly, I seem to have talked myself into liking it more than I did originally.  Actually, maybe appreciating it is a better description. 

I think that many readers who pick this one up expecting a Grown-Up Version of Harry Potter will be disappointed.  The similarities pretty much begin and end with: Unhappy kid gets accepted into School of Magic.  The Magiciansisn't about the plotting (which, especially towards the end, was pretty weak) or about the world-building.  It's a coming-of-age story (though I don't know if I really believe that Quentin has actually come of age by the end) about a self-absorbed, not-very-impressive, extremely angsty young man.

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Book source:  An ARC given to me by a library patron.

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Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

The Christmas Mary Had Twins.

ERM.

This book cover is a million, zillion times more wrong than the one on The Secret Baby.  (Which, to be fair, wasn't really wrong.  It was just weird.)

Be sure that you note the tagline.

Ron Howard and H.P. Lovecraft?

Really?

Oookay.

From the LA Times:

"Look, it's challenging, but if we get it right, it could be really original and psychologically interesting and scary in a great way. And it's a graphic novel, this is new territory for me."

Well, here's hoping that it works.  If it does, I'll totally give him a high-five.

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In related news, due to @wendigratz, I now need to buy The Stars Are Right.

I was lucky to get a 3/10.

Yowch.

This quiz on exotic words is HARD.

Not Tim Burton's Alice.

Hmmm.  I do like the shrinking room.  And the cast is way more interesting than Tim Burton's cast.

So, should I give Tin Man another chance or what?  I watched the first installment, but the pacing was so weird and it seemed like it was trying too hard and sometimes Zooey just... doesn't doing it for me.  And I found Claire from 90210 ridiculous rather than menacing.  Those lame tattoos?  Also... she's CLAIRE.

(via educating alice)

In the Garden of Iden: The Company, #1 -- Kage Baker

I'm hugely irritated that I can't remember who recommended this to me or where it caught my eye.  Because Big Thanks are in order.

In the Garden of Iden begins:

I am a botanist.  I will write down the story of my life as an exercise, to provide the illusion of conversation in this place where I am now alone.  It will be a long story, because it was a long road that brought me here, and it led through blazing Spain and green, green England and ever so many centuries of Time.  But you'll understand it best if I begin by telling you what I learned in school.

For me, that was that.  For the next 300 pages, I belonged to Mendoza.  Because, with that first paragraph, I believed in her and she made me want to know everything, everything, everything.

Fast forward to the distant-ish future: 

Dr. Zeus, Inc. semi-successfully figures out immortality.  There are enough drawbacks -- a major one being that it only really works well on children, rather than on "middle-aged millionaires" -- that it isn't a marketable process, but still.

Dr. Zeus, Inc. also figures out time travel.  It isn't particularly marketable, either, because it is only possible to travel to your own past and back again.  And because history cannot be changed.

BUT.  That bit -- the bit about history?  It only applies to recorded history.

Which opens up some serious windows of opportunity.

And now back to 1541-ish, where Mendoza's story begins:

As a nameless, friendless child, she is rescued from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition by an agent of The Company.  She is swept away to a secret location in Australia, where she is taught and trained and physically altered:

It wasn't all that different from any particularly demanding boarding school, except that of course nobody ever went home for the holidays and we had a lot of brain surgery. (45)

For the rest of her life -- which will be forever, as she's now immortal -- she will work behind the scenes of history, collecting and preserving plant life for use in the future.

This book is the story of her first mission and of her first love.

Sorry about the ridiculously long description.  I guess I could have just said that it's a SF novel that reads in some ways like historical fiction and in other ways like a coming-of-age story:

"Characterization is very important in the field.  I don't think you've exactly got a handle on that, yet."

"I have too," I said hotly.  "I think I'm portraying a late medieval Spanish adolescent very well."

"No.  You are a late medieval Spanish adolescent.  It's not a role for you, not yet." (145)

And instead of blathering on, I could just have said that it brought Jasper Fforde's Thursday Nextbooks to mind -- not at all in tone or style, mind you -- because it deals with a group of people who work behind the scenes of our world, manipulating things while the majority of us just swan on through our lives, unaware.  I could have just said that it's one of those books in which I loved the ideas and the worldbuilding just as much as the narrative voice and the characters -- and I loved Mendoza's voice and the other characters very much indeed.  (Actually, I did just say all that.)  But I went on and on about the set-up because I just think it's so dang cool. 

So, yes.  Love love love.  Full of heart and full of brains and full of spunk and full of emotion.  (Though I did think that the last fifth-or-so felt really rushed and it very suddenly got way heavy, which made me suspect that some of the Heavy Stuff was a Way of Setting Up Our Heroine's Tragic Past and to give her A Reason to Question Her Situation in Future Installments, but I could be wrong.)  Do not, do not, do not let the atrocious cover (that comes nowhere near suggesting the storyline, let alone the tone of the book) scare you off.

Every time I hear about the rediscovery of a species previously thought long-extinct, I will think of The Company.  And I will wonder.

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Book souce:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Needless to say, I've put in a request in for the second one.

If you aren't up for reading the new Dan Brown...

...you could read John Crace's Digested version of The Lost Symbol.

Or even better, you could read his as-he-read-it play-by-play:

Langdon hurried towards the Rotunda. The lecture was due to start in five minutes and he was running late. Still, he was well-prepared. The Symbolism of the Freemasons was his latest research project and what better place than to deliver his lecture than in the hall designed by Benjamin Franklin and so many of the founding fathers of America and Freemasonry? He strode onwards through the clunky sentences and the turgid repetition of pointless information till he reached his destination.

Heh.

When the book trailer may be better than the book.

A few questions.

Why is John Ritter on the cover of this romance novel?

  

Was John Ritter a Symbol of Romance in 1995?

Why did he bleach his hair?

John Ritter is going by the name Dante Nichellini?  Really?

Is he in love with popcorn girl, or afraid of her?

Is the book actually more romantic than the cover suggests?

What's wrong with Popcorn Girl's sleeve?

Where is John Ritter's other hand?

Why are they playing Scrabble in the basement?

How is that lamp providing so much light?

How could the former owner of this book discard it, knowing that it was autographed by the author (who has very nice penmanship)?

I'm open for more questions.

The whole world can breathe a sigh of relief.

At no time will we lack for glossy new triple-spaced and massive-margined* James Patterson books.  He just signed a 17-book deal with Hatchette.  That'll keep him there through 2012.

Seventeen books in three years.  Seriously.

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*A (hilariously grumpy) little old lady came in yesterday and donated his new book.  She was mad she'd spend $25 on a book that had, like, 23 words on each page.  (She didn't say "like", though.)

Philip Pullman may top himself controversy-wise.

Silly me, I didn't know how he could possibly get people more revved up than he did with the His Dark Materials trilogy.

But I was obviously not thinking big enough:  his new book, a re-telling of the life of Jesus that challenges the gospels, will be called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. 

But then, maybe since it's a book geared to adults, it won't be controversial.

Maybe.

Oh, who am I kidding?  Philip Pullman can't blow his nose without being controversial.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane -- Katherine Howe

Cambridge, Massachusetts: April, 1991.  After successfully passing her qualifying exam, Connie Goodwin plans to spend the summer doing preliminary research for her dissertation.  Those plans go awry when her mother -- a flighty New Age-r, ever self absorbed and Connie's polar opposite -- asks her to spend the summer in the Salem area.  Not for a vacation, oh no.  No, Grace has asked that her daughter drop everything and clean out a house that has stood abandoned for the ten years in which her mother (Connie's grandmother) has been dead. 

Not just a little bit abandoned:  we're talking giant-mushrooms-growing-in-the-hallway abandoned.

Being a bit of a martyr when it comes to her mother as well as at a loss about her dissertation topic, Connie says yes.

Early on in the cleaning, she finds a key in an old Bible.  Within the key is a fragment of parchment that reads:  Deliverance Dane.  That discovery sets Connie on a quest for an as-yet-unstudied primary source about the Salem Witch Trials.  But it isn't just a simple academic search (or as simple as a search like that could be).  More and more often, Connie sees things that no one else seems to see -- glimpses flashes of the past -- and she isn't sure if she's losing her mind or if maybe there's more to the world than her logical historian self is ready to handle.

In The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, chapters about Connie's present alternate with chapters about Deliverance's, and then, as Connie's search progresses, with Deliverance's descendants.  I found it a compelling read, even resorting to Ye Olde Flashlight Under the Blanket to finish it.

I've seen a few complaints about it.  Some people, expecting straight historical fiction, were disappointed with the fantasy element that was introduced halfway through.  To that, I respond thusly:  There is a blurb on the front cover that says "A gripping supernatural puzzler".  That's about as up-front as you can get without spoilers -- I really don't think there was a bait-and-switch going on. 

I've seen complaints about the amount of description of clothing and furniture in the historical passages -- some people felt that Katherine Howe was shoe-horning her research into her novel.  I didn't get that feeling.  The details felt natural to me, and I felt that the historical passages actually worked better than the chapters about Connie.  It was during Connie's research that I felt the use of the shoehorn.  That was where I started picturing the author instead of the character.  But all of that, I think, is just a matter of taste.

For me, the historical chapters were much stronger than the contemporary ones -- and it was mostly because of the heroine.  Connie falls into one of the more frustrating categories of protagonist:  the supposedly super-smart person who remains clueless hundreds of pages after the reader has figured everything out.  Like, not being sure of who the villain is until he is LITERALLY standing right in front of her, confessing.  Or her inability to make the really obvious leap about Deliverance's line of descent.  It's hard to take someone seriously as having a huge brain when she acts really, really dumb.  I do think that a good part of her blindness was in character -- she ignored her instincts, and gave her gut little merit -- but knowing that didn't make her any less frustrating.

Like other readers, I was bothered by the (I felt) excessive use of dialect in both time periods.  I think much (not all -- in some cases, I really did feel that it was over-the-top) of that feeling is probably also a personal issue -- but it did detract from my enjoyment of the book overall.  And there were some broad generalizations about New Englanders (which, if I'm going to be truthful, were pretty accurate) that chafed.  But that could be chalked up to the uncomfortable feeling most people would get while reading an anthropological description of their own culture.

So.  This was one of those odd reads that I enjoyed more while I was reading than I did upon reflection.  That said, though, if she writes another one, I'll give it a try.

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Book source:  My local library.

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I read this for the R.I.P. IV challenge.

Cut to the Quick: Julian Kestrel Mysteries, #1 -- Kate Ross

From Cut to the Quick:

Julian Kestrel had first appeared in London society a year or two ago, and hardly anything was known about him, though he was said to be related in some dubious way to a landed family in the north.  If he had been anything but a dandy, such vagueness about his pedigree would have been fatal, but of course the most spectacular of the dandies were absolved from Society's usual inquisition into breeding and birth.

Really, I don't know why you'd need more than that.  I mean, if I were you, I'd have already heaved myself out of my chair and headed out to grab a copy.

Buuut if you do need more:  After rescuing young Hugh Fontclair from a tight spot in a gaming hell, Julian Kestrel is invited be the best man at Fontclair's wedding.  Which is odd, because before the rescue, the two had never even exchanged pleasantries.

Julian accepts the invitation and, with Dipper (his ex-pickpocket valet, because OF COURSE his valet is an ex-pickpocket) in tow, he wanders down to stay at Bellegarde, where he discovers that the pre-wedding atmosphere is anything but comfortable.  The two families about to be united by holy matrimony and wedded bliss hate each other so very much that they find it difficult to even spend time in the same room.

So it almost isn't even that surprising when a murder occurs.

Cut to the Quick is the first book in the Julian Kestrel series -- a series that I've been meaning to read forever and ever, but that I kept putting off because I was pretty sure I'd fall in love and then be bereft when I finished the last of the four.  (The author died in 1998.)

So, you know.  I'd been avoiding future literary misery.

But, you know.  I had to put an end to my years of procrastination and start myself down the road to depression SOMETIME.

After reading Book One, I'm pretty durned sure that I'm going to be seriously depressed when I'm done.  Because, wow.  Love Julian Kestrel.  Love love love. 

Like Peter Wimsey, people tend to underestimate him because he's a dandy and because he's comfortable letting people underestimate him.  But he's just wonderful in every way, as 11-year-old Philippa quickly learns:

"If everyone who died with unpunished sins on his conscience came back as a ghost, the living would be crowded out of ever house in England."

"You're cynical.  I thought you would be.  Can you sneer?"

"With terrifying effect."

"Oh, do it, please!  I want to see it!"

"I'm afraid you're much too young to withstand it.  I should be accused of stunting your growth--perhaps ever sending you into a decline."

"I wouldn't go into a decline.  I'm robust.  My governess says so.  But, come along, I mustn't make you late to dinner."

Sadly, she didn't end up appearing in much of the book, but I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it to those of you who like the Regency era, historical mysteries, Dorothy Sayers, Georgette Heyer, etc., etc., etc.  It's got great characters, setting, dialogue, clothing descriptions, and it's a really decent whodunnit.  While I correctly identified the murderer very early on, I had no idea what the motive was, and there were a million-and-six very reasonable red herrings. 

In a nutshell: HOO-FREAKING-RAY, this book is made of awesome!

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Book source:  ILL, because my local library doesn't have this series, GRRR!

I stayed up too late...

...finishing (flashlight and all!) The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.  While I had some issues with it, I couldn't put it down.

So I'm hoping to post later.

If not, see you tomorrow.

Assuming I don't get caught up in something else...

But I thought...

...that Edward Cullen DIDN'T like Wuthering Heights.

Why am I even thinking about this?

"My gay young tapeworm."

I'm currently listening to The Code of the Woosters.  Good god.  Even though I've read it 46 bazillion times, the audio version has me laughing like a maniac on my drives to and from work.

From the book:

A thing I never know, when I'm starting out to tell a story about a chap I've told a story about before, is how much explanation to bung in at the outset. It's a problem you've got to look at from every angle. I mean to say, in the present case, if I take it for granted that my public knows all about Gussie Fink-Nottle and just breeze ahead, those publicans who weren't hanging on my lips the first time are apt to be fogged. Whereas if before kicking off I give about eight volumes of the man's life and history, other bimbos who were so hanging will stifle yawns and murmur 'Old stuff. Get on with it.'

I suppose the only thing to do is to put the salient facts as briefly as possible in the possession of the first gang, waving an apologetic hand at the second gang the while, to indicate that they had better let their attention wander for a minute or two and that I will be with them shortly.

Seriously, has the world ever had a better narrator than Bertie Wooster?

Rather gorgeous.

Even though between the two of us, Josh and I probably own three complete sets of the Ripley books, I find that I am tempted by this:

Click through for more images, including shots of each cover.

So pretty.

Lookalikes.

Washington Irving:

 

And the Wizard of Oz:

Don't you think?  Maybe it's just the hair.

That furry book.

Now.  While I'm very curious about the Wild Things movie, I'm not really interested in the novelization of the original book.  I just don't see the point, when the original was perfectly perfect as it was.  It doesn't have me gnashing my teeth or anything, just disinterested.  But, whatever.  The decision to offer a furry version of the book just struck me as rather gimmicky, and reminded me that pain-in-the-ass monster book (I don't remember what it was called, but it was covered in extremely fake shaggy black fur) we had to deal with at the bookstore.

However.  All that didn't prevent me from finding this tidbit from a brief interview with Dave Eggers in the New Yorker very interesting:

“The Wild Things” will come in a fur edition, I hear?

It was just an idea I had, that it could be cool to have a book covered in fake fur. I told Maurice about it, and he told me a story of someone trying the same thing, with real fur, back in the sixties. I guess they made thousands of them, wrapped in some kind of real fur, and sent them to a warehouse for a while before shipping them to stores. By the time they came to ship the books, the warehouse was full of moths, and most of the fur had been eaten. Anyway, we went to a printer in Singapore about this, and they sent us a bunch of faux-fur samples. We chose one that’s usually used to repair small holes in mink coats. I think we ordered more of this fur than had ever been ordered at one time. The result looks pretty good, though. Very creepy.

(via Powell's)

Mary Katherine Blackwood is coming to the big screen.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle has the potential to be a fantastic movie.

If it doesn't suck.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, I'm already wringing my hands and worrying.

Should I be losing faith in NPR's book coverage?

Because isn't this exactly like that Cathy's Book series?  With the pocket of stuff and the website and phone numbers?

That, in addition to that the fact that I'm 91 pages into The Magicians, which is enjoyable but certainly not exciting or ground-breaking in a way that makes me want to hand out copies on the corner, has me thinking that the answer to my first question is a resounding YES.

Not that I'll stop following it, mind you.

But is glowy magic on the wax or wane? That's what I want -- nay, need -- to know.

Tim Holman has posted a chart of the most-used elements in 2008 Fantasy Cover Art at The Publisher Files.

Too cool.

(via GalleyCat)

"What exactly, Thomson asked, are your politics? "Fishing," Ransome replied."

Sir Arthur Ransome:

Author of Swallows and Amazons.  (Knew that.)
Won a libel trial against Lord Alfred "that jerk" Douglas.  (Didn't know.)
Proposed to "virtually every eligible woman of his acquaintance".  (Didn't know.)
Ran away from his wife and daughter... (Didn't know.)
...and ended up shacking up with Trotsky's personal secretary.  (Didn't know.)
British spy.  (Knew that.)
Possible double agent for the Russians.  (Didn't know.)

Note to self:  Ask the director to order this book.

PS to self:  Will you be able to convince her to import it?

PPS to self:  BE VERY CONVINCING.

Some reading lists.

Lesley Blume picks Must-Read Classic Children's Books at NPR.

Will Davis picks his Top Ten Literary Teens at the Guardian.

So who's read...

...Lev Grossman's The Magicians?

Because it sounds pretty awesome:

On first glance, Lev Grossman's new novel, The Magicians, looks very much like a Harry Potter story, only with slightly older characters, and an American setting. The hero, Quentin, is a teenager from Brooklyn on his way to a Princeton admissions interview when he's whisked through a portal to an Academy of Magic called Brakebills.

But Quentin differs from Harry Potter in that he reads fantasy novels, and he's enchanted to discover that the magic he's longed for all his life actually exists.

Later on in the piece, he talks a bit about literary writing vs. strong storytelling, and it sounds like he realized that you don't necessarily have to give one up to have the other.  Which is nice.  That he realized that writing genre fiction doesn't necessarily have to mean writing crappily.

I almost think I have a galley of it around here somewhere.  I'll have to look.

[Moments later:  YES.  I thought so.  It was in my car.  A patron picked it up for me at BookExpo, and somehow it's never made it into the house.  SWEET.]

Hit List: Keller, #2 -- Lawrence Block

For the past few months, I've been writing about Hard Case Crime titles here and at Guys Lit Wire. But, as is usual for me, I got distracted. Hard Case led me to Lawrence Block, which led me to Keller, and I now I won't be moved from Keller until I've read all of the books about him.

Keller is a hit man. He's good at what he does. He doesn't do it because he's a vigilante (though he has been known to go against the client's wishes if he disapproves), and he doesn't do it because he enjoys it. No, he kills people for a paycheck. At one point, he was actually planning on retiring, but then he re-started his boyhood philately hobby -- so now he has to keep the money coming in so that he can continue adding to his stamp collection.

In Hit List, Keller meets a girl. She introduces him to an astrologist, who tells him that he has a murderer's thumb. Which doesn't sit right with Keller, because, despite his day job, he doesn't think of himself as a murderer. And the idea that his profession could have been preordained bothers him.  And after meeting with the astrologist, things feel off. Jobs don't go right, and eventually, Keller realizes that his life is in danger -- someone, for reason or reasons unknown -- wants him out of the picture.

What I love about the Keller books is that they aren't action-packed go-go-go thrill-rides about an assassin. They're books about a smart, slightly odd guy who has likes and dislikes and a job and who goes to jury duty because it's the right thing to do. And I also love his conversations with Dot, the lady who sets up his jobs. This excerpt will give you a brief taste of the awesome that is Keller:

"The cop's black," he told Dot, "and the defendant's white. I don't think I mentioned that before."

"You and Justice," she said. "Both color-blind."

"At first," he said, "we didn't know. I mean, we knew about the defendant, because there he was sitting with his lawyers, and middle-aged white guy with an OTB face and a bad rug named Huberman."

"His rug's got a name?"

"What is this, English class? You know what I meant. His name is Huberman."

"I know what a rug is," she said, "whether it's got a name or not, and I never saw a good one. But what's an OTB face? Off the books? On the button?"

"Off-track betting," he said. "There's a look horseplayers get."

"A kind of woulda-coulda-shoulda look."

"That's the one."

While this one wasn't a collection of short stories like the first one, it still reads like a series of connected vingettes -- due to the pacing, I think that not everyone will take to it, but those of you who do will adore it.

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Previously:

Keller:

1. Hit Man

Other Lawrence Block:

Grifter's Game (Hard Case #1)
Girl with the Long Green Heart (Hard Case #14)

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(cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire)

Book source: My local library.

Linda Buckley-Archer just racked up some serious points*.

In her list of Top Ten Time-Travel Stories, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency comes in at #4, just after H.G. Wells, Mark Twain and Virginia Woolf.  I can live with that.

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*So many points, in fact, that I will give Gideon the Cutpurse another try -- I started it ages ago, but got distracted by something else.

The nominees for the 2009 World Fantasy Awards...

...have been announced.

New-old Billie gets a book deal.

Well, actually, Lisa Rinna already has a bestselling self-help book.

But now she has a contract to write a novel, too.

Aaaand because any mention of Lisa Rinna is really just an excuse to post a clip from Days:

Where there's a best-selling novel...

...there's bound to be a plagiarism claim.

Here's the letter with the claimant's analysis -- I scanned down through, but I couldn't read it all.  It's just too early in the morning for me to deal with Bella Swan. 

From what I did read, the claim seems pretty weak -- while both authors use some of the same words in similar situations, the word choices seem totally obvious and the passages from both books just read as hideously clichéd.  Somehow I doubt that Stephenie Meyer needed to read Nocturne for the inspiration to give Edward the annoying habit of calling Bella "love" all the time. 

Though I'm somewhat impressed that both authors came up with such terrible names for the vampire spawn:  Renesmee v. Requiem.  Good lord.  They could be American Gladiators.

(via sarahw)

"This guy was talking out of his ass. I liked him immediately."

Good thing I discovered this Sherman Alexie piece before work -- otherwise, I'd have been sneaking peeks at it all day.

I really need to read more of his stuff.

This post...

...makes me want to read A.L. Kennedy.

ME.  Want to read literary fiction!  Who'd a thunk it?

But, look:

And then review quotes are cut out and arranged in ways that will make the paperback jacket read as if the Archangel Gabriel came down to earth and produced the volume in question with his very own heart's blood and anyone who doesn't buy it is not only crazy, but possessed of a leprous soul and likely to bite the heads off kittens. Sadly, every other book jacket will read like that, too – reducing the reader to a guilty, cognitively dissonant mess on the floor of Waterstone's café.

Funny!

[Moments later:  Apparently, not only is she an award-winning author (I already knew that bit, thankyouverymuch), she is also a stand-up comedian.]

My zombie prediction:

They (you know -- THEY) are going to saturate the market and ruin the fun.

The zombie Beatles?  REALLY?

And Only to Deceive -- Tasha Alexander

When Emily accepted the proposal of the dashing (and rich) Viscount Philip Ashton, it wasn't for any of the usual reasons.  Not for his money or his title, and certainly not because she loved him.  It was to escape her domineering mother.

So, when Philip died on safari shortly after the wedding, Emily was less distraught than one would expect.  After all, though she had had some nice moments with Philip, she hardly even knew him. 

She has to act the grieving widow for society -- but secretly, widowhood agrees with Emily.  She has much more freedom than she ever would have as a wife, and she has much more freedom than she ever did have as a daughter.

As she comes to the end of her mourning period, though, she begins reading her husband's recently-unearthed journals.  Not only does she discover that there was much more to her husband than she'd previously believed -- not to mention the fact that he was truly, deeply in love with her -- but she also uncovers a mystery.  One that, if explored too deeply, may put her own life in danger...

One of my very favorite things about And Only to Deceive was that Emily exhibited actual development of character.  Rather than an Unusual Upbringing Resulting In A Heroine With Semi-Modern Sensibilities (a la Lady Julia Grey and Amelia Peabody*), Emily explores her new-found freedom slowly and tentatively, and (almost) always remembers to keep Society's Opinion in mind.  That isn't to say that she doesn't make some mistakes -- a bit of freedom to someone unused to it can make for a bit of recklessness.

Add to that a love story with a dead (or is he?) man, a couple of swoony moments with a live man, a discovery and exploration of classic literature and archeology on the part of our heroine, and a rather xenophobic lady's maid, and the result is an enjoyable romantic mystery.

I was a bit disappointed with Emily's inability to spot the villain from a mile away -- after all, she's supposed to be very bright, as well as a great reader of popular novels, so she really should have pegged him from Minute One -- but I can't fault her for much else.  After all, there were plenty of pieces of the puzzle that I wasn't sure about until I was quite close to the end.  I'll pick up Book Two soon.

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*That is NOT to suggest that I don't adore Lady Julia and Mrs. Emerson with all of my heart.  Because I do love them.

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Book source:  Bought with money earned from the sweat of my brow.

Tohrment? Vishous? Rhage?

DocTurtle reads J.R. Ward's Dark Lover:

Mostly, though, I wonder where in the hell J.R. Ward learned how to name her characters.  “Tohrment”?  “Vishous”?  “Rhage”?!?  Phlease.  At least now I finally get the running “extra ‘h’s” gag on SBTB.  And for those of you who would like to create your own Black Dagger Brotherhood vampire name, I hope you’ll visit the following website I whipped up this morning: The Black Dagger Brotherhood Name Maker  Because I care.

I am so glad he's reading it so that I don't have to.  Because I suspect that I'll enjoy his recaps much, much more than I would the actual book.

Denise Mina: all-around awesome.

From the Scotsman:

Well, I say, I've just read all the cuttings and I'm tired of hearing about this Glasgow crime writer who's always down-to-earth, feisty, funny, nice, and all the rest of it. She smiles, signs the book, and slides it back.

"To David," it says. "F*** YOU! Denise Mina."

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Previously:

1. Garnethill
2. Exile
3. Resolution

Hit Man: Keller, #1 -- Lawrence Block

From Hit Man:

He hadn't met the man, but he knew his name.  Even if he wasn't sure how to pronounce it.

The man in White Plains had handed Keller an index card with two lines of block capitals hand-printed.

"Lyman Crowder," he read, as if it rhymed with louder.  "Or should that be Crowder?"  As if it rhymed with loader.

A shrug in response.

"Martingale, WY," Keller went on.  "Why indeed?  And where, besides Wyoming?  Is Martingale near anything?"

I picked that excerpt mostly because it was an early example of Keller's habit of playing with words and of Keller's habit of talking to himself even when he's having a conversation with someone else.  (Although I'm pretty sure that all of his on-screen conversations with the man in White Plains were one-sided.)

What it doesn't highlight is his relationship with the inimitable Dot.  Or how he feels about dogs.  Or how he deals with therapy*.  Or the aspects of his job he actually enjoys (figuring out how to off someone without becoming a suspect, let alone seen, caught or killed -- he views it as a kind of puzzle).  That excerpt doesn't have any wonderful lines like:

Around nine that night Keller wanted a drink, but he didn't want to have it in the company of adulterers and their favorite music.

Here's another one:

"Then the son of a bitch joined a gym," she said, "and he wound up leaving me for his personal trainer.  He wadded me up and threw me away like a used Kleenex."

She didn't look like the sort of person you'd blow your nose on.

The book is chock-full of wonderful funny little bits like that, but it never ever feels like Lawrence Block is throwing out one-liner after one-liner.  Everything flows and is perfectly integrated into the storyline(s), and even though the book is in the third person, somehow it feels like it's in Keller's voice.  Like if Keller was writing a story about a guy named Keller who was a hit man, that's how it would read.  I don't know how Block did that.  But I love him for it.

There's plenty of sex and violence, but most of it is off-screen, and what little isn't never struck me as graphic or even remotely gratuitous.  And there's surprisingly little profanity.  Maybe that's because the stories -- they were written (and originally published) as short stories** -- are more about Keller and Who He Is than about Keller and What He Does.

What all of that amounts to is this:  I have a new love, and he is a stamp-collecting assassin.

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*That was my favorite story.  And Josh liked the one with the dog best.

**I read it straight through in one sitting, though -- it reads like a novel in installments.

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Previously:

Grifter's Game
The Girl with the Long Green Heart

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Book source:  My local library.

Oooo.

Hard Case is publishing a previously unpublished Westlake novel next April:

"It's an ambitious and audacious and beautifully written book," Ardai continued, "and his agent at the time apparently told him to stop screwing around with that litra-chur stuff and produce some more of those great crime novels for which he was rapidly building a reputation. So, away went Memory, into a drawer, and despite his good friend Lawrence Block (who had read it and remembered it as really excellent) imploring him to take it out again on and off for the next four decades, Don never did."

Goody.

What is it about celebrities, food and plagiarism?

Following in the illustrious footsteps of Jessica Seinfeld, Elizabeth Hasselbeck has been accused of swiping passages from someone else's book and using them in her guidebook to gluten-free living.

Ugh.

Tasha Tudor's children are fighting about her estate and her burial arrangements.

Seeking recommendations of...

...witty historical fiction romantic suspense/thriller/mysteries a la Elizabeth Peters and Deanna Raybourn. 

I picked up an Amanda Quick yesterday, and while I'm finding it entertaining*, it's chock-full of ridiculously unbelievable infodump dialogue along these lines:  "As we both know... blah blah blah here's some information that the author needs to convey to the reader blah blah". 

So annoying.  Help me out, eh?

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*Yowzer.  The main characters boinked almost immediately.  And then the lady thought the guy died in a fire so she pretended that she was his widow so that it would be easier for her to start her own business but of course he wasn't really dead so he went to a gossip columnist and was all, "IT'S A MIRACLE, I'M ALIVE!  THE AMNESIA I GOT IN THE WILD WEST IS GONE AND I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE MY WIFE AGAIN!"  And now he's living in her attic because he's worried that a thief who is after some old alchemy artifacts will come after her!!!

I assume you understand why I've continued reading despite my issues with the writing.

GAH!!

Crimes Against Photoshop at SBTB.

Rites of Spring (Break): Ivy League, #3 -- Diana Peterfreund

First things first:

POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEE!!!

Okay, that's out of my system.

Mostly.

Even though that's out of my system (mostly), I must say that I'm pretty sure my love for him knows no bounds.

Some super-confusing time with Brandon and an ugly feud with a rival society on campus make Amy Haskel's winter absolutely miserable, so the idea of spending her very last Eli University spring break on Rose & Grave's private island is an attractive one.

Of course, this is Amy Haskel we're talking about.  And wherever Amy Haskel goes -- sometimes through no fault of her own -- there is trouble.  An accident-that-could-easily-have-turned-disastrous on the ferry ride over to Cavador Key sets the tone, and that accident is followed by out-and-out vandalism, anonymous threats and destruction.

There is a not-very-impressively-veiled spoiler in the next paragraph, but I just checked, and the back of the book also has a not-very-impressively-veiled spoiler about the same subject, so... it's your call.  If you choose to skip it, just know that anyone who loved the first two books in the series will love Rites of Spring (Break).

Some (like me), who carry an affection that tends in a certain direction ("Whoever could she be talking about?", you ask...), will lurrrve it even more.  I did feel that Amy took waaay too long in figuring everything out -- I had the various mysteries mapped out from the moment they were introduced, while it literally took the non-physically-violent equivalent of a blow to the head for Amy to start to put it together -- but as Amy's affections finally Moved in the Right Direction, I didn't mind her lack of Mystery Solving Brain Power.

As usual, I thank Diana Peterfreund for a total blast of a book -- a perfect-o chick-lit-ish beach book blend of mystery, romance, humor, smartassiness and action.  As I've said, this series is shelved in Grown-Up Land, but it's a perfect crossover for the older YA set.  Totally, totally looking forward to reading Book #4.

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Previously:

1.  Secret Society Girl
2.  Under the Rose

Friday's Child -- Georgette Heyer

After being turned down by the Incomparable Isabella, the young Lord Sherington needs to take action.  It isn't so much that he's heartbroken (because he isn't, despite the fact that the Incomparable is, well, Incomparable and every eligible young man of means (and some without) have been throwing themselves at her feet all season) -- it's that if he doesn't marry, he can't take control of his fortune until his twenty-fifth birthday.  And he needs to deal with his gambling debts now.

So, when he finds his childhood friend Hero crying on a rock wall, trying to decide between two unbearable futures (becoming a governess or marrying the local curate), he quickly decides on a plan of action:  and before either of them stops to think -- Hero because she's loved Sherry forever though he's never seen her as anything but the little girl next door, or Sherry, just because he's an ass -- they've run off to London and got married.

Sherry had planned to go on living his life as he had been -- this is, after all, a marriage of convenience.  But due to Hero's lack of experience in society and Sherry's neglect, his young wife gets into one difficult situation after another.  Sherry begins to understand that life may never be the same -- but will he realize that he doesn't want it to be? 

I had to look up that old Monday's Child rhyme to find the meaning of Friday's Child.  (All I could remember previously was that Saturday was something about work.)  The title is, of course, totally fitting -- the line is "Friday's child is loving and giving".

I loved this one.  My poor co-workers can attest to the fact that it made me laugh out loud, because they not only had to put up with my giggling self during multiple lunch breaks, but they had to put up with me reading passages aloud.  Whether they wanted to hear them or not.  Like this one:

'Look at it which way you like, it don't make sense.  For one thing, a hero ain't a female, and for another it ain't a name.  At least,' he added cautiously, 'it ain't one I've ever heard of.  Ten to one you've made one of your muffs, Sherry!'

'Oh no, I truly am called Hero!' the lady assured him.  'It's out of Shakespeare.'

'Oh, out of Shakespeare, is it?' said Ferdy. 'That accounts for my not having heard it before!'

'You're out of Shakespeare too,' said Hero, helping herself liberally from a dish of green peas.

'I am?' Ferdy exclaimed, much struck.

'Yes, in the Tempest, I think.'

'Well, if that don't beat all!' Ferdy said, looking around at his friends.  'She says I'm out of Shakespeare!  Must tell my father that.  Shouldn't think he knows.'

'Yes, and now I come to think of it, Sherry's out of Shakespeare too,' said Hero, smiling warmly upon her spouse.

'No, I'm not,' replied the Viscount, refusing to be dragged into these deep waters.  'Named after my grandfather.'

Like I said, I loved this one.  Seeing Sherry grow from a selfish (if likable) ass into a worried mother hen into a loving husband would have been pleasure enough, but Hero herself was also a joy -- she's an innocent, and she's certainly starry-eyed when it comes to Sherry, but she's never insipid.  She does have a temper.  And she does have an inner strength.  She's someone who the others can't help but love and feel protective of, and I felt the same way about her.  While a lot of the book made me laugh out loud, there were other bits that had me so enraged with Sherry that I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. 

I do tend to get a bit involved.

Along with the writing, the storyline, the pacing (except for the situation that wrapped everything up -- that all seemed a bit too over-the-top and rushed considering the rest of the book), the secondary characters -- especially Sherry's stable of friends -- are also wonderful.  I wish Heyer had written books about them as well.

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Previously:

The Talisman Ring
The Grand Sophy
The Quiet Gentleman

The Alastair Trilogy
1.  These Old Shades
2.  The Devil's Cub
3.  An Infamous Army -- The characters in Regency Buck are major players in this one, but Regency Buck comes first.  I read them out of order, sadly.

Connected to The Alastair Trilogy:

Regency Buck -- See An Infamous Army above.
The Black Moth -- This was Heyer's first novel.  She later revisited the same characters (but with different names) in These Old Shades.

Fathom -- Cherie Priest

Sometime in the 1930s, 18-year-old Nia is invited to take a break from working on her family's orchard and visit her wealthy aunt and cousin in Florida.  Her cousin Bernice is a New York sophisticate, worldly and -- as Nia's disapproving grandmother puts it -- "fast".

She is also, as Nia quickly discovers, extremely angry and totally bananas.  Her rage leads to a life-or-death confrontation between the girls which ends in a wholly unexpected manner:  Arahab, a water witch, takes Bernice beneath the waves -- because she needs human assistance to wake the sleeping Leviathan.

Unbeknownst to Arahab, another being witnessed the showdown -- an earth elemental who is determined to prevent her plan from succeeding.  So while Bernice is exploring her new existence and testing her new powers, Nia is going through a much slower transformation.  Their clash on the beach will not be their last meeting.

While I didn't really connect emotionally with the characters, I loved Fathom.  I loved it for its action-packedness (I read it in one sitting, occasionally having to force myself to go back and read bits more carefully because I kept getting so swept away in my WhatHappensNext excitement).  I loved it for its surprises (there was an excellent OMIGODWHAT moment).  I loved it for its Wicker Man-ish island cult, I loved it for its Battle Between Eternal Forces And How We Little Mortals Are But Pawns storyline, I loved that the elementals came off as what they were (immortal and inhuman) rather than what that type of creature reads like in many other stories (pretty much human, just wiser and more zen). 

I loved it for what I'm starting to think of as specifically Cherie Priest-ish stuff:

Her affectionate mockery of genre clichés (while still putting them to good use):

And all the candle nubs, left scattered in the grass--they weren't regular candles.  They had a greasy texture and a black coating.  Who used black candles?  No one up to any good, that's who.

Her imagery and description, as usual, were both so spot-on that I forgot I was reading and really felt like I was watching the events unfold in person.  And, as with her other books, I loved her use of real-world history and settings -- before Fathom, I never knew about the Gasparilla Pirate Festival or the Bok Tower Gardens, and now I need to visit the latter.  As well as pretty much all of the other National Historic Landmarks.

This was published as an adult novel, but as with Cherie Priest's other work, it has definite crossover potential.  Thumbs up and up and up.

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Previously:

Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore, #1)
Wings to the Kingdom (Eden Moore, #2)

Dreadful Skin