Book Blog

Bambi

2012-02-11T22:12:00.001-08:00

Marie-Louise Von Franz's Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairy Tales

2012-01-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've been challenged by anything I've read. Sure, I tried to read Penrose's Cycles of Time and I didn't understand a whit of it. So that was outside my understanding but this is within it. I can just barely, if I read slowly enough and take time after each paragraph to think, comprehend the things written in this book. I am no Jungian expert myself, so ideas of Ego/Self/Shadow are a little convoluted in my head. Thank you internet gods, for Wikipedia.

LightBoxes by Shane Jones

2012-01-17T10:25:00.000-08:00

reading now

Pleadian Agenda by Barbara Hand Clow

2012-01-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

Woah. What a fun way to challenge, basically ANY belief system. Meditate with your third eye in the galactic center, have orgasmic sex, and be prepared for the 2012 winter solstice 'cause baby, the inter-dimentsional beings are coming.

5/5

Program or Be Programmed by Rushoff

2012-01-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

'
Rushoff made some great points about identity on the internet- but he failed just short of stating anything other than the obvious.
2/5

Seed by Rob Ziegler

2011-12-27T10:08:00.001-08:00

Seed. Seed. How do I talk about this book? This book is revolutionary, I think. This book is ... disorganized. While Seed wasn't written in a way that could be easily understood, it did have some ideas and settings that stayed with me, even a few weeks after I angrily, frustratedly gave up on it. Set in the ruins of Denver, in a desert world with biologically manipulated humans, it had a lot going for it, unfortunately, the writing barely gave that information to us.
I don't know what to rate this book.

3? 3.5?

Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami

2011-12-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

I think this is one of my favorite of Murakami's stories. I would compare it to 1Q84. He rules.

6/5

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

2011-12-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Pinocchio kills his consciousness cricket in the first few pages of Collodi's original Pinocchio? This is a really funny story of a block-headed boy who just can't seem to learn his lesson. This book was written about 20 years after Alice in Wonderland, which I find pretty interesting. Disney really changed this story around, mostly in the way it made a few other characters more evil than they were. Most of the revisions were necessary to make a story that actually flowed with some direction, though. Great job, Disney!

Pinocchio by Winshluss

2011-12-27T09:41:00.000-08:00

This book started my Pinocchio obsession. When you find something modern based on something else written a hundred years in the past, you've gotta know, what about the original thing inspired THIS? This drug infused, sex crazed, mechanical war boy tottering around, how is he close to the Disney Pinocchio? The original Pinocchio? I went on a quest. The art is great, the story is fresh, this graphic novel rules.

5/5

The Wikkeling by Steven Arnston

2011-11-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

The Wikkeling is a creepy, well-written children's book by a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop named Steven Arnston. The main character is Henrietta Gad-Fly, unliked by her fellow classmates and parents, terrible in school, and quite unattractive with a "blockish figure," she makes a great heroine. The world is made of plastic and old things are regarded with disgust. There is a strange creature stalking the main characters, giving them headaches. The entire story was set up with such care that it was a pretty big disappointment when Arntson completely drops the ball and doesn't explain anything in the end. I figured the Wikkeling would be some awesome metaphor for the way people were living but it turns out it's not really anything except maybe a computer program? And it was created to fight something that never gets explained. Pretty disappointing. Anyway, I'd still recommend this book. Just don't expect it to end as well as it began.

4.5/5

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

2011-11-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

Kind of a pump-up for the entrepreneur. A call-to-arms if you will to gather your tribe, provide them with a place to communicate, and do your "duty." Pretty good while you're reading it, silly when you're not.

4/5

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse

2011-11-19T12:16:00.000-08:00

Reading now

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

2011-11-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

Killer Unicorns!

Need I say more?

The focus was a little too boy-obsessed for my liking. Then again, I'm not a teenager anymore. Peterfreund pulled it off well. It's too bad more attention (and by attention I mean money) wasn't paid to this book. It could have been edited a little better. Some sentences were a little less than coherent. Also, there REALLY should have been at least 4 illustrations. Those four illustrations should have been of the 4 unicorn species in the world.

Not to worry, I'm illustrating them for you.

4/5

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

2011-11-09T17:10:00.001-08:00

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje is a series of poems, prose, and occasional photograph meant to depict a fictional account of Billy the Kid's life. It's fast-paced, descriptive, and beautifully written. I really liked this book.

5/5

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

2011-10-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Cover
It is beautiful. It says five things.
1. 1Q84
2. Haruki Murakami
3. A Novel
4. International Best Seller
5. "Murakami is a genius." Chicago Tribune

The Pages
Heavy press cream colored paper. Beautiful inside cover of two moons, one glowing white, the other clouded and dark against a black sky. Really the design of this book is superb. The page numbers are normal on the left and backwards on the right. 1Q84 is inscribed on the side of each page near the page number, also backwards on the right side.

By page 40
We have met two characters. One has traveled down the "rabbit hole," in this case, an expressway stairwell. So far it is expertly written- each scene a performance piece, set to silent music, with invisible cues. It's his best work yet, I'm already convinced.

The Entire Book
Haruki Murakami is a master. He kept the tension equal the whole time. The final outcome didn't hit until the last ten pages. And the whole time I was biting my nails, thinking, will he end it happily? I didn't know. I am immesely pleased with this book. I will carry it in my heart always. Also, I'm going to get a new tattoo on Friday. It's going to be from Hard Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World.

This book gets 6/5

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

2011-10-25T13:52:00.001-07:00

I didn't finish either of these books. They were both very intriguing. Fiction For Lyfe!

Can YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse by Max Brallier

2011-10-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

An adult Choose Your Own Adventure, Can YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse by Max Brallier is everything you could hope for. "You" are a couple-years-out-of-college office worker in Manhattan and you're in a morning meeting when the outbreak happens. Do you take a taxi? Run for the subway? or head home to your apartment?
And thus your story begins. Reading this reminded me of all the times I read Choose Your Own Adventures stories before, as a kid. You've got your entire hand marking all the spots where you could backtrack if it was a bad decision, then you read the bad decision first, just to make sure it was a bad decision, then back track and read the right decision. That was what I would have done anyways you think.
The funny thing about Brallier's book is that the bad decisions are actually the best decisions. When I decided to start pounding beers and take a bunch of xanax, I eventually get rescued but, it seems, every time I try to intelligently avoid the zombies, I just end up getting killed. It makes me wonder what kind of decision making and morals Choose Your Own Adventure stories instilled in me as a kid.

4.75/5

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

2011-10-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

OH MY GOD.
THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK.

I rolled around like a madwoman when it ended. No, I cried, No I don't want it to be over.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi is an experiment in imagination. It follows the famous author, Mr. Fox, through his fairy-tale love affair with his own imaginary Mary Foxe. There is no line between reality and fiction, and the disjointed stories don't often add to the understanding of the whole but they are written with such keen observance and clarity of heart that you clutch at them, and live inside them for the few pages that they exist. Oyeyemi's writing is powerful, intoxicating, and clear. It's very rare that I read a book twice- I'm always on to the next thing, but I want to read this book over and over and over again. I want to see what I missed and I want to learn it by heart. I could talk about this book all day and it still wouldn't make much sense to someone who hasn't read it. It's not exactly confusing, just a bit disjointed, but in a lovely and desired way.
This is a great book.

6/5

The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Ereaders

2011-10-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Working for the local Library has it's perks. First of all, I can call in sick if I'm sick. I haven't actually done this yet, but it's really, really nice to know the option is there. Also, they just bought 12 e-readers - for the employees - to make us better employees. Now, isn't that awesome. And so, I checked out the oldest of the e-readers we have- the Sony E-Reader and I read The Help on it.

Nicole's Opionion of E-Readers

E-Readers are about the stupidest thing ever invented. First of all, the technology is already outdated. The reason I say this is that there is absolutely no reason to be carrying around a phone, an e-reader, an mp3 player, and a laptop. This means, according to me, that all modern mobile device technology is outdated, as no device conglomerates all of these things into one - yet. And when that thing does, after it evolves for a couple gens, maybe then, maaaaybe then, will I say, okay, this technology is relevant and then buy one. You know that shit's only two or three years out. So why would I spend near $200 on something which, by the way I hate, to read books on when I'll be able to read books, listen to my music, surf the web, and carry it around in one hand in a couple of years for the same price. It's just stupidity.

Now, I said I hate e-readers. This is true. The second reason they are the stupidest thing ever invented is that they're fucking stupid. They take up all this waste, metal, batteries, plastic, energy, and then they give you... guess what, a book. But not a book that you can carry around and look cool. Not a book that you can smell. Not a book that you can look at the picture of the author. Not a book that you can see the color of the cover. Not a book that you can weigh in your hands. Not a book that you can physically experience as you plow through it. No. They give you a book that is actually just a bunch of words and nothing else. And they charge you the same price for it.

Third reason: I'm a hell of a fast reader. Like fastest in the West fast. I cannot read as fast on an e-reader as I can in a book and here is why.
1. The pages, even when the print is the smallest possible, are smaller than a regular page. This means I cannot read as many words at once. It also means the lag time between pages is increased greatly.
2. There is always some lag time between pages in ANY book, as you have to turn them. BUT I believe the lag time, at least for the Sony E-Reader is significantly more than simply turning a page.
I hate reading slow. And I hate waiting for a screen to load.

Now for the book:

The Help by Katheryn Stockett has been really popular. Like 100 holds at the library popular. It finally slowed down a big but then they released the movie. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is yes, it's a pretty good book and I'm glad it was so popular. It's theme is: "White people suck" and I'm pretty tired of reading about it after Indian Killer and now The Help. It was written pretty well and the historical background was pretty good. The characters were interesting. I'm not crazy about historical fiction if it doesn't have magic in it. So I'll give it a 4.

4/5

We the Animals by Justin Torres

2011-10-13T13:49:00.001-07:00

So, yeah, the Iowa Writer's Workshop is the place to go.

Though it is marketed and sold as "fiction" Torres' story feels more like truth than the world outside the pages. In an observant and poetic voice, it is a telling of the classic story of three sons, narrated by the youngest. It's a book about brotherhood, coming of age, and the inevitable realization that our parents are people too. Lit by love and shadowed by pain, it is the true story of the human condition.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011-10-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a strange story about a young boy dealing with his grandfather's death. His grandfather, while he was alive, was an extreme embellisher of stories, touting claims of monsters and magical children. Jacob, our hero, stopped believing his stories at a young age, that is, until his grandfather appeared to be killed by those very same monsters. Convinced he is crazy, Jacob travels into his grandfather's past and discovers that the world is not as stable as it appears to be.
My very favorite part in the book is this:
"Only birds can manipulate time, Therefore, all time manipulators must be able to take the form of a bird...Most, however, slip back and forth only occasionally, by accident. We who can manipulate time fields consciously- and not only for ourselves, but for others- are known as ymbrynes. We create temporal loops in which peculiar folk can live indefinitely."
Also, it stayed in the "real world" for a little over 100 boring pages, which made the fantasy exciting and fresh-feeling.

4.5/5

The Gunslinger by Steven King

2011-10-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Kelsey, my only, lonely reader will be happy to know that I am NOW READING THIS BOOK.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

2011-10-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

Well I'll be darned at the number of books I read and don't review. I read this, oh, two months ago, at the end of summer, perhaps in late August? Revati down at Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins handed me the book and said I would like it. I read the first few pages, wasn't ready for a teen book, then picked it up a couple of weeks later. Anyway, it follows a talented teenage art student who has a chimera (mixture of beasts/human) for a dad. It starts in the present, travels back to an almost entirely new (yet very connected) story, and then ends in the now-enlightened present. After meeting Laini Taylor at the Boulder Bookstore last night, I am more enthused about her work. She has written other things, like a book about a weaver of magic carpets, and uh, yeah I'm gonna read it. It's a great teen book, good characters, good plot though a little disorganized (I couldn't offer a better way to present the story) and finishing up with a horrible ending that could only be solved by, you guessed it, sequels.

4/5

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

2011-10-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins is the third and final (and best) of the Hunger Games Trilogy. In it, Katniss assists in the revolution that she accidentally sparked and successfully achieves the desires of the rebel group. Always acting as a pawn takes it's toll though, and Katniss is left mostly empty, a shell of a person. Somehow, though, Collins makes a stab at a semi-happy epiloge. Many readers (aka amazon reviews) felt "betrayed" by Collins' ending but I thought she wrapped it up nicely and at least gave us something to hold on to. Great trilogy.

5/5

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

2011-10-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's only a trilogy. I'm going to read it in 4 days and it's only a trilogy. What will I do afterwards? Probably what Stephanie Meyer did:
"I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn't have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it."
Yes, I've lost sleep over these books. Not just from incessant reading, but in nightmares and nagging thoughts. And there are only three of them. And now I'm on the third one. Not fair, not fair at all.

Let me get to my review, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, like it's predecessor The Hunger Games, reads like a movie. It's an action-packed page-turner. You read until your thoughts are Katniss Everdeen's thoughts, until you're thinking right along with her. She's very smart and Collins does a great job to keep the reader just as informed as she keeps Katniss- so the reader makes the same decisions and feels comfortable inside Katniss's head because she's reliable. She'll carry you through. She may not know everything but she does wonders with the knowledge she does have.
My complaint:
The Hunger Games should have been the last of The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a to-the-death contest and I was hoping Catching Fire would be all about Panem, the world, but of course it returned to the arena. Now, there's no POSSIBLE way that Mocking Jay (the third in the now-trilogy) can take place in the arena. Now we will get to the heart of the story, the distopian world, and the girl who will save her people from The Capitol.

4.75/5

Indian Killer by Sherman Badass Alexie

2011-10-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Sherman Alexie rules.
Indian Killer is not just a cool story. It's not even a cool story about Indians. It's a complete analysis and critique about the historical and current tension between white Americans and the Native Americans that they stole everything from WHILE telling a great story. The plot takes place in Seattle, not on a reservation. It deals with the Indians that have tried to assimilate into the white culture but of course, they carry their dark skin, their Indian blood, and for that, they're spurned, falsely adored, unjustly hated, and ignored. My favorite part is when Marie Poltkin says something along the lines that maybe the ghost dance, the dance to kill all the white people, maybe it works, and maybe a couple of Indians are ghost dancing, making the Indian Killer - who is an Indian who kills, not someone who kills Indians. Anyway, it was a great length. The only thing I wished would have happened, and it would have been so apparent and crafted if it had, would be that the two most violent characters, Aaron (white) and Reggie (indian) have met. Of course, they would have killed each other and maybe we wouldn't have learned anything but it felt like the tension should have led to their meeting. It didn't and that's okay.
I think it's his best because he blended an extreme sociological/cultural situation and made a hell of a book about it.

5/5

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

2011-09-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well, no wonder that they're making this into a movie. You open the thing up and it's like it's projected right in front of our eyes. You can't put it down or close it or stop reading it because that would be like pausing the most action packed part of a dramatic movie.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has been getting a lot of attention lately, and for good reason. It's been rated next to 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as one of the best dystopian novels. I'm not sure if it's that good, but I did enjoy it immensely. My non-perfect rating represents the fact that it dealt with such a short period of time and didn't really delve into more than the action. Katniss is an amazing heroine though, and just the sort of girl that girls of today need to be emulating. Sure she's got boy problems but only because she never noticed boys before. She's a survivor and she's got so much compassion in her own reserved way. It's a good book. I'll be exited to finish the series.

4.5/5

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

2011-09-22T14:25:00.001-07:00

Plainsong by Kent Haruf is a lot like a Mcarthy's The Road if it were written in full sunshine. The story is made of darkness but lit with a silver lining of hope and neighborly kindness. I really enjoyed the entire thing, each character, each viewpoint and the things that happened. I loved the scenery, which was in Holt, Colorado - not too far from my own home. I guess the reason why I didn't give it a full 5 is because it dealt with a year in time but it did not emphasize the effect of the Colorado seasons strongly enough. The winter is COLD and I really didn't get that feeling. Maybe I'm being to hard on him but there could have been more seasons and more colors. Otherwise, perfect book. I can't wait to meet him. :)

4.75/5

Here is a picture of me reading this book.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

2011-08-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Funny, smart, quick, and somehow realistic, The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson is a great book. It follows the Fang family, the parents, Camille and Caleb, obsessed with including their children in their post modern art - namely, creating public chaos. The children become actors, props, anything but normally loved children. I read an interview by Wilson in the Book Pages that talked about his use of dark humor and shifting of light and darkness. It was a very good interview and it persuaded me to read the book, which if you couldn't tell, was a very good book. It's a little reminiscent of Geek Love but the kids are just mentally demented, not physically.

5/5

Under the Harrow by Mark Dunn

2011-08-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

I probably won't finish this book even though it's an English Major's wet dream.
A society trapped from the outside world, stuck in the world of Charles Dickens, with only his compendium, a 19th century encyclopedia, and a bible to guide them.

Damn is it boring.

But so intriguing.

If only it weren't so boring......

I may give it the old college try one last time.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

2011-08-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

This is my pile of books-to-read. But guess what. I didn't want to read any of them. So I biked down to my local library and picked up one of the last few Gaiman's I haven't read and boy, was that a good idea.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
5/5
Characters always ended up where they needed to be, perfect blend of modern and ancient myth, reality and fantasy, struggle and humor.

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster

2011-08-08T18:48:00.002-07:00

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster is the third Paul Auster book I have read. The strange thing about Auster's work is that I wouldn't recognize it. Each novel is a world of it's own with characters unlike the others. That's talent.

Anyway, Mr. Vertigo was wonderful, it truly was. It was about a snot-nosed blabber mouth kid in St. Louis in the 1920s who meets a mysterious man. This mysterious man adopts him and actually teaches him to first levitate, and later fly. It was simply a joy to read.

So why did I give it 3/5? Because the kid stopped flying after the first part of the book- about 1/3 of the way through. And the story basically fell apart. And then it got worse. Like way worse. Like if the book had started that way I would have thrown it away. I think it was based on Auster's desire to tell the whole life story of the kid, all the way until his death but that was a mistake.

3/5

Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

2011-08-08T18:48:00.001-07:00

Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

5/5

<3

The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer

2011-06-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

This Book is incredible.

Dexter Palmer's Dream of Perpetual Motion captures the disillusion of living among machines. In about 350 pages that feel like a complete and fantastic lifetime, Palmer gives us an alternate history of the early 20th century, where gears and levers work with electricity to create a familiar-yet-different world- where computer technology doesn't exist, only the intricate clock-maker's wheels and cranks to drive mechanical men and automated aspects of every-day life. It is a classic, yet realistic hero's journey, following the struggles of would-be hero Harold Winslow (the name is intensely perfect) and the inventor-genius villain Prospero Talgient.
I haven't read The Tempest but Prospero is the mad Magician, Miranda is his daughter, and Caliban is enslaved by Prospero. They are stranded, not on an island, but in a giant tower. Ah Ferdinand also plays a part! (Thank you Wikipedia)
Apart from that the story is genius, the world is realistic, the writing is awesome, and the characters are believable. Perhaps Palmer is gifted with a story-teller's mind but I'm sure his doctorate in literature helped him quite a bit as well. Thank god for education. Thank god for Dexter Palmer. I can't wait for his next work to hit the shelves.

Here is a picture of me reading this book.

5/5!

The Passage by Justin Cronin

2011-06-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Passage by Justin Cronin has received a lot of hype and for very good reason. Before it was release a movie deal was already in the works. Also, it is said to be the first in a trilogy which makes my blood boil with excitement. (Read Summer of 2010)

The Passage tells the story of biological-warfare gone wrong, genetically mutated zombie/vampires, and the effect they have on the world over a couple hundred year span. It's been a while since I read it but it was insanely good and I devoured it's near 800 pages in a fervor. Here is a picture of me reading the book.

5/5

The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold by Kate Bernheimer

2011-06-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

Kate Bernheimer is my brain with different experiences. She embodies the frail, starving white girl lost in her insecurities/intellect. It is genius on paper, poetic, moving, fantastic, imaginative, and wonderful.

Here is a picture of me reading this amazing work.

8/5

Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer

2011-06-04T20:05:00.002-07:00

5/5

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

2011-06-04T20:05:00.001-07:00

Magical world inside magical world inside the real world. Lev Grossman's The Magicians tells the story of a young intelligent boy and his curious education. I enjoyed the fact that in this magical universe there is no good vs. evil, only the personal battle for finding happiness and overcoming boredom. Good and evil exist in a complex interweaving, as they do in the real world- not as a singularly good thing vs. a singularly bad thing. This was a SUPER story and written very well. Lev Grossman has his masters in Comparative Literature and though I've never heard of this particular degree, it must be a good one. I look forward to reading his other novel Codex.

5/5

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

2011-05-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow may best be described by it's genre. It is written in the style of modern female literature, almost in the same tone as a biography, with light overtones of science fiction and a heavy religious overtone. If I owned a bookstore I would be tempted, if not forced to place this book in Religion over Fiction. That is how heavy the religious overtones are. Its not a preachy book, more of a deep look about the legitimacy of God.
The story itself was great -when she got around to telling it. I won't be reading the sequel.

3.5/5

Paul Auster Invisible

2011-03-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Paul Auster is a literary bad ass. I wasn't sure what to expect with Invisible after digesting New York Trilogy (5/5). It wasn't as good as NYT but then again, I wasn't disappointed. Invisible follows the story of a young man in 1967. It was never very clear to me why the book was called Invisible- maybe the young man, who dies telling his story, feels as though his life has been invisible. I have a strange attraction to the title because it causes me to think of the word "indivisible" which is very different indeed. I like comparing the two words with the actions and demeanor of the character because he was both. It was a story of intense dedication to a set of morals, while really going off track of the morals of society. Basically, I think Auster could wipe his boots on a piece of paper and it would be worth reading, he's just that good.
It's not the first Auster I'd recommend, as it has some old-man musings that most white male authors get when they start to get old. But I would never turn someone away from it.

4/5

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

2011-01-26T19:48:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is the 800+ page, historical fiction, 1st novel from Susanna Clarke. The plot, though as twisted as a King's Road, fulfilled every complex question and desire the reader could have while creating the vivid worlds (both Fairy and Christian) of the early 19th century. Clarke incorporates real events, such as the war against the French, with her fantasy world of practical magicians so beautifully, it's almost hard to tell exactly where the history stops and the fantasy begins. It's dark without dwelling on the darkness, and light without being silly. Perhaps my favorite thing about this novel was the language. She stays true to the almost-stuffy banter of 19th century gentlemen and ladies while occasionally changing the spelling of certain words. Whether it is the old way or her own way of spelling, I cannot say, but it is fun to read a word like "connexions" on the page of a modern book. The characters are all complex, the story moves along like a river, never stopping or slowing, and the magic is restrained for the sake of realism. I loved this book. I'm not sure if there is anything that could have made it better. I will probably read it again, even with the near 1000 page commitment.

Here is a picture of this book on my head.

5/5

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

2011-01-13T22:35:00.000-08:00

Well, things haven't really been going my way lately, and you know what that means for my reading life... FAN-TA-SY TIME!

I picked up The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly based on its cover and boy did it deliver. The story follows a coming-of-age boy through his mother's death and father's remarriage and into fairy land. Fairy land is the story world where all the humans who enter bring their own monsters and heroes. It's a simple hero's journey across a dangerous landscape. The scenes are vivid, the villains frightening, and the story exciting. While the whole story wasn't exactly groundbreaking or terribly, fresh, Connolly did put a nice old fairy tale spin on a more modern story and it did exactly what it was supposed to do - take me out of this world.

4.75/5

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

2010-12-02T17:30:00.000-08:00

Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 Mother Night is two things. First, it is a story, a fairly well-told story of a German's life in World War II. Secondly, it is a character sketch of a very Vonnegut-esque man in his forties, and whose only drive to live is his curiosity. My favorite quote from the book isn't even from the story itself. It's from the preface, from Vonnegut. It is this: "This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral; I just happen to know what it is; We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
I will say that of the collection of Vonnegut novels I have read this one comes in second place.
1st place Slaughter House 5
2nd place Mother Night
3rd place Breakfast of Champions
But I did like the drawings in BoC so maybe they're tied. Oh I won't fight myself over it. The point is, I recommend reading it and it helps if you pretend the main character is Glenn Beck :X

4.5/5

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

2010-11-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

I laughed, I cried, I loved it.

5/5

The Truth About Unicorns by James Cross Gilbin

2010-11-15T17:07:00.001-08:00

The Truth About Unicorns by James Cross Gilbin, is the third nonfiction text I have read about unicorns. I will rate it on a different scale than normal
- Quality of information 3/5
- Layout 5/5
- Quality of pictures 4.5/5
- Quality of writing 2/5

The thing is, this book didn't really make any claims at the age group it was trying to hook. The writing was not scholarly at all and implied that unicorns don't exist. As this is an ongoing debate, I think it irresponsible to not give both sides of the modern argument. Also if it's a book for kids, it should be more clear. Kids aren't the only people who care about unicorns, come on.

3/5

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

2010-11-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is told from the perspective of a dwarf albino hunchback. She was purposefully conceived that way, to become a circus freak in her family's traveling circus act. The story, insane as it is, is so well told that amidst the tents and lions and saw dust and cooky characters, it is still completely comprehensive. Simply achieving this feat makes me bow to Ms. Dunn in literary awe. But it isn't just a story about the albino dwarf hunchback's childhood, it also simultaneously follows her present day, where she survives in Portland as a radio dj, taking care of those around her. The two stories never take away from one another or distract. I was never wishing to be in the past when I was in the present of vice versa. Presenting dueling stories that remain equally interesting is another literary task accomplished. And not only that.
THE STORY
The story is amazing. The characters are as solid as wood. The entire thing takes place before the reader's eyes, like a play on a stage. And at the end, Dunn has the reader feeling as though it was all her own history that she just learned about in the 300 pages. This story was masterfully woven, expertly told, and clearly written. If all books were this way, the world would be a better place.

5/5

Something Wicked this Way Comes

2010-11-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked this Way Comes is an attempt at a thriller. The story tries to follow two young boys and their experience with a supernatural carnival that comes to town. Where3 Bradbury failed is in another character, Will's father. Will's father is composed of Bradbury's own fears about aging and death. This character takes page after page of nearly nonsensical philosophy that has no real place in the action/adventure preteen story. I thought at first that Bradbury wrote it when he himself was too old to comprehend what he was writing but it turns out good ol' Ray was only in his 40s. Maybe I need to go back and re-read Fahrenheit 451. Maybe it's not as good of a book as I remember. Or maybe Bradbury just stumbled on this one and that's why no one has heard of it.

I have to mention two characters though that really stood out and made the story worth reading. The first is the Illustrated Man. Pure evil incarnate, he wasn't quite as enrapturing as the dust witch.
THE DUST WITCH. A witch with her eyes sewn shut. She travels in a hot air balloon and feels the earth with her hands. She struck me almost as strongly as Coraline's Other Mother.

2/5

Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks

2010-10-11T19:28:00.001-07:00

Terry Brooks avoided some of the common mistakes with novels like this, but not all. I don't know why editors let so much slide with repetition. The book should have been 100 pages less than it was. We're not getting paid by the word anymore, Dickens. Brooks vocabulary and descriptions were adequate, as was the story itself. I liked the female protagonist and the classic battle between good and evil (Void and the Word) was redone well enough to keep me interested. So why didn't the book catch me in the way it was supposed to? Maybe I read too much. It felt like a story being written.

3.25/5

Flight by Sherman Alexie

2010-10-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

I read Flight right before I read Reservation Blues. It's a pretty bold move to kill your main character in the first 50 pages and I wasn't sure about it but he pulled it off in the end.

4.5/5 stars

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

2010-10-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie began differently than most of his books. It followed a couple people from the reservation who obtained a magical guitar and so they started a band. The band was mildly successful, failing at the last minute like so many plots of Alexi's. It was heart wrenching and it taught me a lot I didn't know about reservation life like HUD housing, commodity food, etc. I am glad I read it but it wasn't the best book I've read by him so far.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

2010-06-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Alright, Murakami!
Here is a work that I have heard nothing about. This is not always a bad thing (thinking back to Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World)
After Dark lacks the one thing that Murakami always puts in- Himself! Perhaps Takahashi is a younger version of himself but I do not think so. There is a bit of unexplained magic, like always, an interesting point of view (this is where he inserts himself?) and great characters.
Perhaps it is not his strongest work but then again I would argue that it simply isn't translated as well as some of his other works. It's a pretty quick read though and I did thoroughly enjoy it!

4/5

Esio Trot by Roald Dahl

2010-06-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

Speaking of books I've found on people's floors, Esio Trot by Roald Dahl was a book I found in the back of a car during a slightly long trip. I remember I brought it inside after reading most of it in the car and finished it up. I recently re-read it and it was just as good as I remember. It is delightful and funny and cute and nice and clever.
Go Roald Dahl!

4/5

Child of God by Cormac McarthyC

2010-06-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

This book was on my girlfriend's bedside for a few weeks before I even looked at it. I started reading it, not very interested but immediately was sucked up in McCarthy's descriptions. Child of God tells of a man named Lester Ballard- a truly perfect name for him. He is in his late twenties and simply roams the Tennessee mountains. Why it never occurs to him to get a job is beyond me but he does get by living in caves and killing squirrels. It is strange and haunting. I have absolutely no complaints about it.

5/5

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

2010-06-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

I am continually failing my readers!
I read The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall about a week ago and completely forgot to update! Unbelievable.

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall captured me from the beginning. A man wakes up in a room and cannot remember anything. As it turns out, he is being hunted by a conceptual fish. Seem confusing? It sort of is... but in a very fast moving sort of way. The logic may not pan out, or it may- I didn't take too much time really analyzing it (for fear that it wouldn't) but the STORY. Wow! I love good stories! Instead of the classic amnesia story where the victim is obsessed with the past, the main character becomes obsessed with the future, with survival, which was so god damn refreshing.

I give this book some thumbs up
5/5

Things I read on my phone and forgot to update

2010-06-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
I picked this book up in a bar while watching a show in a fit of anxiety. It calmed me down and sucked me into the story. Luckily I haven't been exposed to the story in any other way before, at least not that I can remember. It ended a lot sooner than I thought it would and kind of strangely. I liked how he described fast forward and rewind before those things existed. Wells and Jules Verne are classified in my mind in the same category. Good slightly scientific story tellers. Great job.
4.75/5

"The Variable Man" by Philip K. Dick
I really loved some of the concepts in this short story. I continued to get caught up on the race of the variable man. I thought maybe he was black but they never said either way. It wasn't supposed to matter but for some reason it did to me. Logan said a lot of the things that happen were impossible based on closed circuit technology but I liked it anyways.
4/5

"The Call of Cthulu" by H. P. Lovecraft
It was so good it got me on this late 19th century kick, which is why I picked up Middlemarch which was actually written mid 19th century which is probably why I hate it so much.
4.75/5

2010-06-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,
I know there are none of you other than myself so let me start over.

Dear Nicole,
I am sorry I haven't updated my book blog in so long. It's not that I haven't been reading, it's that I haven't finished a single book I've picked up and I don't want to claim having read it without actually having read it all. Here is a list of books that I have read some of in the last month or so...

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safron Foer
"collage" of writing. Simply amazing. Hard to read. Very hard to understand, 4.75/5

Middlemarch by George Eliot
I only made it 100 pages in and decided I simply couldn't go on anymore. Too much marriage drama.

Roald Dahl Short Stories
5/5!

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
I got 75% of the way through and knew what was going to happen so stopped. It's by far not his best but it's still a super great story 4/5

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Pretty great ghost story! I will finish this one since it is short. I'll let you know how I like it.

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

2010-04-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

This image is not the cover that I have for this book. Mine is a simple blue and red cover- like a Penguin classic. I adore this older cover and wish they had kept it. Also, I couldn't find an image of my cover- probably because it is so boring.
Dan Beachy-Quick the poet recommended this book to me after he finished reading it and ever-trusting I bought it the next day. I'd never heard of Auster and since it was in the contemporary literature section of the bookstore, I didn't realize it was a mystery.
Paul Auster's New York Trilogy expresses relationships, obsession, writing, detective work, obligation, and mystery. The stories are much more than simple detective stories- often including some existential catastrophe. I loved the experimental nature of the work. Auster became a character in one story. He created a world by weaving characters through the different stories. At one point he named everyone a color. It is all very successful. I enjoyed it and it made me think. It was written well and I felt better for having read it.
5/5

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

2010-04-11T16:33:00.001-07:00

I included both of these book covers because I absolutely hate the cover of the one I read (the movie promo cover with Leonardo DiCaprio.) Some in my American Prose since 1900 class, the class that I happen to be reading the book for, said that the image on the cover didn't match the book and I have to agree. When I looked for other covers I found the one with the people turned away which is so much more consistent. So what's all the rabble about the book covers? I complained about it in my last post and I'm going to complain about it again. They packaged the book as if it's some kind of uplifting love story and it's just not. Put a picture of a god damn syringe or glass of whiskey on the cover, not an intimate moment.

About the book - Yates has a terrific grasp of language. It's painful at times. With phrases like "The floor rode under his feet like the deck of a moving ship" the book is just dreadfully beautiful. The book is about a young family in the 1950's, not wanting to fall into the trap of suburbia.
Intelligent, thinking people could take things like this in their stride, just as they took the larger absurdities of deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs. Economic circumstance might force you to live in this environment, but the important thing was to keep from being contaminated. The important thing, always, was to remember who you were.

5/5

Joust by Mercedes Lackey

2010-04-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Wanting to become better read in my favorite genre of genre fiction, that is, fantasy, I picked up a random Mercedes Lackey Book. That book happened to be called Joust and have a hunky man on the cover in a loin cloth with a beautiful red dragon. How could I not? I'll start by stating the books overwhelming flaws with the intention of eventually dismissing them as being out of the author's control. Firstly, the cover, while accurate, portrays basically the eventuality of the book. It is actually an image of what is achieved by the end of the novel. I'll try to explain. The main character is a young serf. Serf's are not aloud to cut their hair so it's obviously him on the cover. He goes to work for a dragon compound where the highest honor is to be a jouster. He's holding a jousting lance on the cover. Do you get the gist here? And for the duller readers, the back is basically a one-page summary of the book. At this point there's really no point in reading it since you know exactly what is going to happen. You can't root for the underdog because staring you in the face every time you pick up the book you know he will be victorious. Maybe I'm being overcritical here. But like I said, it's not Lackey's fault.
Also there are a ton of typos. Like 4 that I've caught and I'm no editor. Some are quite blatant. Again, not Lackey's fault...really.

So why did you read the book, Nicole? Is your love for dragons so strong that you will read a story you already know the entire plot and ending to? Probably, yeah, but what really kept me is Mercedes Lackey's ability to tell a story. I'm not saying it's groundbreaking work or anything but Lackey studied birds to compare them to dragons. She is consistent and her imagination for the world is thorough without being dull.

Maybe Fantasy novels get pushed unfairly into this mass-market, highly disregarded section. Or maybe they deserve it. But then again the publishers aren't giving as much time to these books as to the best selling "literature." If they can't even make sure a book goes out without typos and if instead of praise the book is covered in its entire plot then I don't know how far it can actually get.

4/5

Fat City by Leonard Gardner

2010-04-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

Gardner spent four years on Fat City and it shows. The prose is moving with stunning observations like out the window there were "pigeons the color of the street." A story about failure, false hopes, masculinity, and pride, Fat City breaks the heart with achingly eloquent words. It's not a feel-good book but it has influenced many writers for good reason. Apparently you should stay away from the movie.

4.75/5

Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño

2010-04-01T16:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a chapter from Bolaño's short work Antwerp

#4. I'm My Own Bewitchment

The ghosts of the Plaza Real are on the stairs. Blankets pulled up to my ears, motionless in bed, sweating and repeating meaningless words to myself, I hear them moving around, turning the lights on and off, climbing up toward the roof with unbearable slowness. I'm the moon, someone ventures. But I used to be in a gang and I had the Arab in my sights and I pulled the trigger at the worst possible moment. Narrow streets in the heart of Distrito V, and no way to escape or alter the fate that slid like a djellaba over my greasy hair. Words that drift away from one another. Urban games played from time immemorial..."Frankfurt" ... "A blond girl at the biggest window of the boarding house" ... "There's nothing I can do now"... I'm my own bewitchment. My hands move over a mural in which someone, eight inches taller than me, stands in the shadows, hands in the pockets of his jacket, preparing for death and his subsequent transparency. The language of others is unintelligible to me. "Tired after being up for days" ... "A blond girl came down the stairs" ... "My name is Roberto Bolaño" ... "I opened my arms" ...

I wept.

5/5

King of the Flies

2010-03-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

King of the Flies by Mezzo and Pirus is an amazing European graphic novel set in the suburbs around kids and kids who have grown out of being kids. The book deals with virtually every character in an intimate way- showing a pretty accurate view of the world through the old, the young, the girls and the boys. Other than a little initial confusion about the ages of the characters and the very statuesque bodies of some of the characters this book is perfect. The illustrations are detailed and richly developed. They correspond to the story so well. It is the case in so many graphic novels that there are wasted images and wasted words. I didn't feel that way with this one at all.
I highly recommend it.

5/5

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

2010-03-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote tells the non-fiction tale of an innocent family of four who were murdered for greed. Capote's writing almost masks the truth of the situation but the characters are too real and some scenes play out too matter-of-fact. The fact that this is a true situation, that the murderers are just young men- they could have been anybody- it's all too frightening for me. The modern sensationalism surrounding murders is strange and Capote may have started it all (?) This book highly disturbed me and for reasons maybe I can't put my finger quite on.
I don't even think I can rate it properly- for what? The story? The writing? The adaptation of the real-life situation to the book? The cutting-edge journalism? The manipulation of people to tell their stories? The exposure of a murder that people would have soon forgotten?
I'll give it a 2/5

A Death in the Family by James Agee

2010-03-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

James Agee's A Death in the Family is a semi-autobiographical novel about a young family that must deal with the loss of the father. The language flourishes around the characters who seem to go round and round in circles without making any progress. Dream-like prose guides the reader through the entire situation- from the children's perspective to the distant aunt's. The only complaint I have is that the language could have been a lot more concise. Agee's death - before the final copy of the book was written, prevented any changes that probably should have been made by lenient editors.

4.25/5

People of Sparks

2010-02-20T15:48:00.001-08:00

The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau is the second Book of Ember. As much flack as I gave The City of Ember, I had to pick up the second one as soon as possible. Following the same characters, DuPrau delves into the subject of racism, violence, and tensions of budding war. There was a lot of action, a lot of original material, and it was really exciting to read. I snatched up the third book in the series, The Prophet of Yonwood but it's a prequel. We'll see about that.

3.5/5

City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

2010-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau is a young adult science fiction novel about a city encased in darkness- lit by a generator no one understands. Standing alone, it doesn't explain much but perhaps the other books in the series do so. The largest issue with the book is the utter ignorance of the characters and their willingness to do absolutely nothing- to question nothing, and to deny any reasonable movement towards progress. In this way the world DuPrau builds is inadequate and unbelievable. Maybe if I were 8 years old I'd be able to accept it. And if I hadn't already read Anthem and The Giver. Maybe then.

2.5/5

Breathers by S. G. Brown

2010-02-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

My initial hesitation with Breathers had to do with the genre. A zombie's lament/ love story... come on. But before I knew it I was on page 120. And it just kept getting better. There are a few plot twists and turns but they're not cheesy. At least not until the last twenty pages. It's like Brown got the hang of a quicker pacing and just took off at the end. While the book isn't a literary masterpiece or anything it was very clever and dealt with a lot of social issues. Ideas of preservation, us vs. them, and treatment of zombies were discussed at length. I really enjoyed this book and I'm still pretty pumped up about it!

4/5

Beast by Marian Churchland

2010-01-30T16:08:00.000-08:00

Beast by Marian Churchland starts out a little slow but it kicks into gear eventually. By no means is it fast paced but it does read well. Like Asterios Polyp there are a lot of meditations on art. The story follows a girl, Collete I think is her name, through a nightmarish abduction/ art commission. What I liked about it mostly, is that it really did feel like one of my nightmares- which I have a lot. And unlike my nightmares, it turns out to be not so scary after all in the end. It's very strange and not really explained very well but the writing is solid and the art is fantastic. Give it a chance, I'd say.

4/5

The Nobody by Jeff Lemire

2010-01-30T15:45:00.000-08:00

The Nobody by Jeff Lemire is a strange tale about a man bandaged from head to toe. While you learn (sort of) why and what he is covering, there is really no final conclusion or understanding at the end. The art is great and the story is told from the perspective of a 16 year old girl named Vikki. Vikki's character and concerns could have been fleshed out a lot more but again, the story wasn't really about her. One quite successful aspect of the graphic novel was the characterization of the place or the atmosphere. Set in a small town it reminded me of the town where Shadow of American Gods spent his off time.

4/5

Coraline by Gaiman

2010-01-16T09:16:00.000-08:00

Neil Gaiman's Coraline reminded me what it's like to be a little girl in a most amusing way. Coraline's magical experiences simply get brushed off by the adults in her life. I love when a kid is more knowledgeable than the adults in a book. Also, I love getting into Neil Gaiman's mind inch by inch. This book will take you about an hour or two to read. Other Mother scares me so much, I painted a picture of her. Maybe I'll post that later.

5/5

The People of Paper

2010-01-13T13:37:00.000-08:00

The People of Paper by Salvador Placencia begins one way and diverges into a very different path. Crossing the line of fiction and nonfiction create a strange magic within the paper pages, making the reader hyper aware of her place in things. I have never seen anyone do what Placencia has done with this novel. It is poetic, exploratory, inventive, creative, strange, and most importantly, successful.
Thanks Kelsey, for the recommendation.

UPDATE/Just wrote a review for work:
By ignoring conventional literary limitations, The People of Paper delivers a strong understanding of the human condition in an unusual way. One character uses paper origami to resurrect the dead, another character has found the cure to sadness, small star-shaped burns along her arms, and even the author himself is a character, haunted by his powerful imagination, responsible for the lives he has created in paper.
10/25/11

5/5

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

2010-01-12T17:36:00.001-08:00

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexi
After reading a few of Alexi's short stories I was afraid he wouldn't be able to tone it down enough for a young adult story... and it kind of turns out he can't, and that's what totally makes it. Described by my coworker as "unflinching" Alexi's only comedy comes with sadness. The book opens the mind to Indian reservation life and the intermixing of whites. It's like The Perks of Being a Wallflower but where everyone isn't white. Alexi stands out to me and I anticipate reading more of his work.

4.5/5

Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World

2010-01-12T17:32:00.000-08:00

Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World is by far my favorite Murakami Novel so far. It has all the magical realism with very little of the realism. There are so many original scenes and ideas that permeate the mind and do not leave. There are unicorns, discussions of the mind, human computers, and wild characters subdued by Murakami's language.

5/5

2010-01-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

Books I have started and may not finish
1. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
2. Food Inc. Participant Media
3. Legend of Nightfall by Mickey Zucker Reichert

I'll have to go home and look on my shelf. This month has been bad for reading. I felt like throwing every book across the room.

Asterios Polyp

2009-12-16T18:09:00.000-08:00

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Really pushes the boundaries of the graphic novel by expressing memory and emotion through color and form. While the plot/story line isn't enthralling, the characters are people you'd like to know, if only to avoid them, and the drama is enough to make you cringe.

4.5/5

Hard Boiled

2009-12-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

Hard Boiled Frank Miller and Geof Darrow
Um. Action-packed robot violence without much explanation. Basically the world is set up, you get tossed around in it for a while, then it's over. I understand it's meant to be a series but as a stand-alone book it doesn't do much other than shock. I'll give it a high score because the art is superb.

4/5

30 hrs later - Hard Boiled is still with me. It's haunting the edges of my conversations. It has entered my dreams.

Ida by Gertrude Stein

2009-12-16T12:05:00.001-08:00

Ida by Gertrude Stein is difficult to tackle with words. While much of it captured the human condition/being a woman, much of it missed. Stein is so hard to like or dislike. So many of the sentences miss while the ones that strike, strike hard. It is tiring to read once you stop but enthralling while you're in it. Maybe I'm on too much cough medicine. Maybe Stein is elusive. Probably both.

4.5/5

My Favorite Books Ever

2009-12-13T02:11:00.000-08:00

Top Five
- Lolita Nabokov
- Unbearable Lightness of Being Kundera
- Catcher in the Rye Salinger
- Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut
- Wuthering Heights Bronte

Honorable Mentions
- Grendel Gardner
- American Gods Gaiman
- Lève Ta Jambe Mon, Poisson Est Mort! Doucet
- Woman in White Collins

Flight Vol. 2

2009-12-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

Flight Volume 2 was just sitting on the graphic novel shelf at work waiting to be read. And read it I did. While not every short-story comic compilation can appeal to everyone, this book was full of adorable, heart wrenchingly wonderful stories. There aren't too many words in most of them making it a quick read. I recommend it to anyone who likes anything.

5/5

Good Omens by Gaimen and Pratchett

2009-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

The first 90 pages I was confused. In many parts after I was confused. Perhaps it is because I am an American. Perhaps it is because it didn't make any sense. I don't know. The funny parts were funny and the story overall was interesting to read. I wouldn't take back the fact that I've read the book but I probably wouldn't read it again. Maybe I've just come to expect too much from Neil.
3/5

Grendel by John Gardner

2009-11-23T09:06:00.000-08:00

December, approaching the year's darkest night, and the only way of the dream is down and through it.
The trees are dead.
The days are an arrow in a dead man's chest. Snowlight blinds me, heartless fire; pale apocalyptic. The creeks are frozen; the deer show their ribs.
I find dead wolves- a paw, a scraggly tail sticking up through snow.
The trees are dead, and only the deepest religion can break through time and believe they'll revive.

And so it goes, on and on poetically heartbreaking, gut wrenching, philosophy questioning prose. John Gardener's Grendel is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. He takes the oldest, most monsterous monster of history (Beowulf's Grendel) and narrates his psychological transfiguration through time, his observances of man's futility, and contemplations of his own strange existence. He never apologizes for what he is though he is tormented by his separation from the on-goings in the meadhalls. It becomes easy to despise the efforts of mankind, especially through the dragons viewpoint.

The dragon has a Tralfamadorian sense of time and knows all that is to come as well as all that has happened. The dragon knows of his own death and tells Grendel of the men he scares, "You improve them! You stimulate them! You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last.... you are mankind, or man's condition." It goes without saying that I freaking love the dragon. I cannot wait to read more of Gardner's work.

6/5

Beowulf

2009-11-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

Inspired by John Gardener's Grendel (which I will finish soon) I picked up this graphic novel version of Beowulf. Since I, pathetically, have never read the original story, I figured any adaptations will suffice for now. I was wrong. Not only is the "Based on the Screenplay" graphic novel so far from the original story that I assume it would be unrecognizable to the trained eye, but the art, the dialogue, and the originality all suffer greatly. Does that sentence make sense? It sucked.
.5/5

Youth in Revolt by C. D. Payne

2009-11-19T14:30:00.001-08:00

I was so excited by this book that I almost started writing the review for it half way through. It's a good thing I didn't because the second half paled in comparison to the first. The beginning of the book was believable enough, cracking me up every couple of pages. I have only laughed so much when reading Tucker Max. But then the book takes a strange turn, as if Payne got Nick into so much shit that he simply couldn't dig him out again. So instead of be turned in and face the consequences and give the story some solidarity or grounding, Payne pushes it even farther, turning Nick into a cross-dressing convict in hiding. This Mrs. Doubtfire twist goes on entirely too long, hundreds of pages in fact. Then, in the end, Nick is still wanted by the FBI and has resolved to pretend to be a woman for the rest of his life even though he doesn't have transcripts or anything for school. But don't worry, because he's got the girl. My other complaint, or at least concern is the unrealistic nature of his love for Sheeni. He chases this girl for almost a year and puts his reputation, his future, and his life on the line for her when she gives him little hope of them ever actually being together. Well, that's my rant about it. The character Nick Twisp is incredibly self-sufficient, unworried about consequences and exactly how you wish you were as a teen. He is intelligent, self taught, witty, and hilarious. If only it didn't turn into such a circus in the end, I'd have to say this book was perfect.

4/5

The Squirrel Machine

2009-11-14T12:21:00.001-08:00

The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit is eerie, beautiful, and concerning. Two fictional brothers grow up comfortably on their dead father's inheretance. They become inventors and dreamers, creating controversial musical machines out of animals. Among dream sequences and strange meetings with other characters, The Squirrel Machine is weird, weirder, and weirdest. I reccomend this book to the curious, eccentric, and queer readers among us. The art is detailed and moving. While the characters and plot remain less developed than I'd like, Rickheit makes up for it with the boys' found and made attempts at art.

5/5

The Lies of Locke Lamora

2009-11-12T16:37:00.001-08:00

Violent, crude, and full of men, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is 700 pages of interesting plot developments and situational twists. The world is strange, full of eternal structures built by the species before man existed. The men are simply homosapien, I think. The only discrepancy I found was in the description of their facial hair as "beards." The book was almost too... shall I say "boyish" for me. Locke's girlfriend was away across seas. The only other girls were vicious twins and brutal whores. While I wouldn't have stuck through this book on my own, I'm glad I read it for the book club, which is tonight. I will update this if I find any other striking ideas.

3.23/5

The Lightening Thief

2009-11-06T18:07:00.001-08:00

The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan is a classic hero's journey style kids book. It stands apart because it incorporates mythological history and makes the Olympian pantheon easy and fun to understand. At times extraordinarily humorous and fast-enough moving, the book is really a success. I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

3.5/ 5

The Mistborn Trilogy by Sanderson

2009-11-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

Brandon Sanderson has proven to me that yet again I do not need dragons to love a fantasy world. (Though they are preferred) The trilogy follows a young girl named Vin through her heroic adventures to overthrow the final empire and become the wife of the new emperor. Vin is a "special young lady" with mistborn powers. Mistborns, in case you're not aware, have the power to burn all 16(?) alchemical metals in their stomachs. By swallowing different alloys or pure metals, mistborns can gain all kinds of things like strength, perception, and the ability to push or pull their bodies against other metals in their surroundings. The characterization is successful, as is the world-building. There was a bit too much fighting for my tastes but I read it all without any boredom. I didn't even have to skip sections. I can proudly say I read all +2200 pages. Also, the ending was a beautiful perfect bow.
Mistborn: The Final Empire
The Well Of Ascension
The Hero of Ages

I give this series a 4/5- low if only for personal taste.

Poetry

2009-11-05T09:31:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the books I have read for Dan Beachy-Quick's Recent Poetry of the United States class.
Forest Gander Eye Against Eye 4/5
H. L. Hix Legible Heavens 3/5
Lyn Hejinian Saga/ Circus 5/5
Peter Gizzi The Outernationale 5/5
Claudia Rankine Don't Let me be Lonely 4.75/5

Graveyard Book by Gaiman

2009-10-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

After reading American Gods I was both skeptical and excited to pick up this "kids" book by Neil Gaiman. The illustrations were pleasant little interludes, without giving up too much of what different characters or scenes looked like. My only complaints are that Bod was too lovable a character, that the story got wrapped up too well in the end, and that it's over now. Also, occasionally, I didn't feel there were enough details at crucial points when the story was moving quickly. For instance, I'd read the same page twice to find out what exactly was going on and still be none the wiser. Despite these small shortcomings, the book held my heart closely.
4.25/5

Bite Me: A Love Story

2009-09-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

Alright, Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore is, for me, right now, unreadable. It's not released yet and you'd think my panties would be all wet for a new author who is adored by many's brand new book but they're not.
Maybe I'm being a stuck-up asshole. Maybe I just can't go from Kundera to Moore. I got 20ish pages in and just... couldn't go on. After I realized that "kayso" wasn't a person and simply stood for "okay, so..." I slapped myself in the forehead and decided to give it a hundr- no, fifty page shot. Then I got to page 20.
Here is a taster (I hope this is legal):
I know! Oh-my-fucking-god-ponies-in-the-barbeque! I know! It just goes to show you, like Lord Byron says in the poem: 'Given enough weed and explosives, even a creature of most sophisticated and ancient dark power can be undone by a few stoners.' I'm paraphrasing. It may have been Shelley.

So, that's page 13. And it is very. very. funny but in a very. mindless kind of way. I will attempt Lamb eventually.

2009-09-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera

Balancing sentimentality with philosophy, Kundera creates a vivid insight to a world more real than the one beyond the pages. The thoughtful, rarely laborious prose reads as a quickening heart in hardening ribs until the pages themselves have become each valuable objects and I was left turning them one-by-one with care and wonder. How can we sell this masterpiece through the same cash register as the quickly forgotten mysteries and hot pink love-after-college attempts at "books?"

Moral of the story: Don't ignore book suggestions.

5/5

2009-09-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Impostor's Daughter Laurie Sandall

Sandall did a decent job of telling her story through the graphic novel medium. A lot of work went into the drawings and the consistency of the story but unfortunately, Sandall comes up short of her art. A tabloid-loving semi-junkie atheist turning to god and rehab could be a good story if it weren't glossed over so much. It's like she's trying to prove that she is an adult to her readers.

2.5/5

2009-09-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

South of the Border West of the Sun Haruki Murakami

Well, well, well Mr. Murakami. Written by anyone else this book would have been utter trash but in his hands, Murakami creates the strangest characters who are simply normal. There are no talking sheep men, no magical coincidences, just real life and only a small existential break with death and voids and it's good that way. After reading Murakami I'm always stuck with thinking what it'd be like to be a man. What is it like to be a Japanese man? A man at that. As for plot, there wasn't really any. It was just a good book. It wasn't too long or too short. I can't put my finger exactly why I liked it so nor do I have any reason to speak against it. Maybe if the author hadn't been established in my mind prior to reading the book, I wouldn't have liked it as much. It's always hard to say.

4/5

2009-09-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Road Cormac McCarthy

This is the first book I have read by him. It was loaded with religious intonations and undertones. I was impressed that he didn't break the format/ style of the book even though it would have been easy to. He kept the same distance from the characters the whole time and I admire the book a lot for that. It was a very easy read and I don't really see any reason why it shouldn't be compared to the difficulty and (sort of) subject matter of The Giver by Lowry. Of course, The Road is more graphic. It deals with dead bodies and cannibalism and.. okay so they shouldn't be compared. But it was an easy read and I'm excited for the movie to come out.
4/5

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

2009-09-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
O.M.G.
Etc.
Neil Gaiman is my hero. This book struck me so vividly and solidly. Ohhhh I have no words for my adoration.
5/5

The Walking Dead by Kirkman and Moore

2009-08-30T13:22:00.001-07:00

The Walking Dead Kirkman and Moore

We have all asked ourselves the simple question:
HOW WILL THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE BEGIN?
Well, for Kirkman and Moore it’s simple. They don’t know. Because our main character simply wakes from a coma in a deserted hospital and begins his new life in the zombie-filled new age. (Yes, exactly like in the movie 28 Days Later) As much as I’m quick to dismiss the situational zombie clichés, there are interactions and situations you’ve never considered. As a zombie survivalist, you’ll be pleased to know that our hero is almost a joy to follow. He makes all the right decisions and seems relatively sane. His adventure takes us to the survivors who have set up barracks and mini-societies. While the situation isn’t new, the human interactions are what drive this series. Infidelity, danger, and fear for the children are the true issues in the books as well as, of course, survival.

3.999/5

(as a side note, I have only read the first two books of the series and can't testify to how the rest of the books hold up!)

2009-08-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine a fine day in which every human is simply going along with business as usual when suddenly... all the men on the planet, animals included, suddenly start coughing up blood and die.

You might be wondering, is this some wacky dream you had, Nicole?
The answer is: NO! IT'S A GREAT GRAPHIC NOVEL CALLED

Y: THE LAST MAN by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

...and as if gang of new 'Amazons' burning down the sperm banks and whats left of the government having cat fights wasn't enough excitement for you there is of course, a lone survivor.
From bra scoffing lesbians to men get told, "not even if you were the last man on earth..." you will love this book because, in short, it is awesome.

I give it 4.5/5

<3 Nicole

originally written for http://oldfirehousebooks.blogspot.com/

Metamorphosis by Kafka

2009-08-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and Peter Kuper

The animation was interesting. I am not an expert on this story and have not, admittedly, read it in many years so I cannot attest to its "correctness" as an adaptation. Though, the story is told well enough with art that assists. This book should do well as a dumbed-down version- as an expression that is more easily accessible.

3/5

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

2009-08-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

4.75/5

Not as deep as I was expecting. I thought there would be more bloodshed considering that it was based and focused on Israeli suicide bombings but I really liked the human relationships displayed. The ending is clever.

2009-08-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

Chicken with Plums Marjane Satrapi

Not as good as Persepolis, of course, but an interesting read. I wonder what the movie will be like since it's such a short story. Maybe they will embellish a lot?