Consider the Daffodil

I'm Moving!

2011-09-06T20:28:00.000-04:00

Ever since I re-started blogging here this year, I haven't felt quite at home. Consider the Daffodil was named after an old Deep Thought that I particularly looked, but it didn't say anything about me or my reading habits. So I've decided to move my book blogging to a new site - new site, same ol' content.

So come visit me at The Reading Mouse for further updates!

Review: Ready Player One

2011-08-22T09:25:00.003-04:00

When I first heard about the upcoming Ready Player One, I was excited but hesitant. A story that is based around nostalgia for a certain time period (here, the 1980s) can be tricky. Things can go either very well or very poorly.

I was barely a chapter in, though, when I realized that author Ernest Cline had everything under control. Ready Player One grabbed me and didn't let go, and the 80's nostalgia was both integral to the plot and perfectly handled.

The story itself is not a new concept: a super-rich guy dies and leaves clues within his creation that could lead the intrepid to his fortune. The Westing Game, a childhood favorite of mine, features the exact same story (more 80's nostalgia, perhaps?). What is unique is the setting - OASIS (the internet turned virtual reality world) - and the rules of the world that govern "game play" and the search for the fortune itself.

Our faithful narrator is Wade (gamer tag Parzival), a high school student who devotes all of his time to hunting for famed OASIS creator (and recluse) James Halliday's fortune. Born decades after the 1980's, this kid spends all of his time obsessively watching movies and TV shows and playing video games that would probably have been considered passe if Halliday hadn't built his contest around them. Instead, after deciphering a clue that has remained unsolved for 5 years, Parzival suddenly finds himself among the most elite players in the world.

Parzival is wickedly smart, pulling connections between references out of his mind with astonishing regularity. But where he falters is with personal communication. There is, of course, a message here - as we increasingly spend our time online, our inter-personal relationships can suffer. But for Z (as his friends call him), determining who is actually your friend when you're all fighting for control of billions of dollars is harder than it may seem.

Do you need to be as well-versed in the 1980s as the characters to enjoy this book? No, not at all. I was born at the beginning of the 80s, and I know I'm even too young to fully understand many of the references. But that doesn't detract from the book at all. The details make the book more enjoyable, sure (I laughed out loud at the bit about how Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton were co-presidents of OASIS), but they're not going to hold someone back from loving the fast-paced adventure, sharp humor, and surprisingly well-formed characters (considering the characters are themselves a shadow of their real life counterparts).

If I could give this book 6 stars, I would. Maybe it's time to rethink how I grant stars? 5/5 stars

The Magician King

2011-08-10T23:45:00.005-04:00

I could not have been more excited to hear that Lev Grossman was following up his amazing book The Magicians only two years later with The Magician King. I remember devouring The Magicians, which at the time I likened to an adult version of Harry Potter, at breakneck speeds. So getting my hands on a copy (well, virtually, and that's a whole 'nother story) of The Magician King was a priority.

First, I should say that I regret not re-reading The Magicians. Grossman jumps right into the story with no real refresher to speak of. I felt myself struggling to remember exactly what had happened to characters in the first book when the events were alluded to here.

Overall, I loved the Magician King and the way it continued this imaginative story arc. Is much of this book (hell, the series) cribbed from classic children's literature? Absolutely. This book reeks of the Chronicles of Narnia, mostly The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, just like the first book was obviously influenced by Harry Potter. And while I found this a bit grating at times (I get it! Two kings and two queens, just like Narnia! Wise talking animals! A ship sailing into uncharted waters!), for the most part, this book works precisely because we all know the stories they're alluding to. However, I ended up enjoying the parts that felt familiar but weren't the most. (Here I mean the fable of the quest for the seven keys of Fillory, which the main plot revolves around.)

The story follows two paths: Quentin, king of Fillory, ventures out on a quest (ostensibly to collect taxes from a far-off province) and learns what it means to be a hero, and a flashback to Julia, a magic school reject, becoming a hedge witch and then so, so much more. At first, I found the two narratives jarring - why should I care about Julia's past when Quentin is obviously the one we care about? But as Quentin's quest progresses, the parallels with Julia's quest to become skilled in magic become obvious. The idea of humility versus hubris in a hero comes up repeatedly, but not in a way that is obtrusive or annoying.

Obviously, it's a bit silly to review a sequel here without having reviewed the original book. Like I said, it's been a while since I read it, but I can't recommend it enough (even having forgotten most of everything). Trust me, read The Magicians - you won't want to wait to dive right into The Magician King.

4/5 stars

Geek Wisdom

2011-08-03T09:54:00.003-04:00

When I first heard about Geek Wisdom, edited by Stephen Segal, I was more than a little skeptic. As a self-proclaimed Nerd and Geek (by my definitions, nerd = passionate about academic subjects and geek = passionate about pop cultural subjects), I've seen how geekery has become widely accepted over the past few years. Often, that means it is co-opted by brands and companies that have no idea what being geeky actually means. So I figured this quirky little sampler of quotes wouldn't necessarily mean all that much to real geeks.

Man, was I wrong. There is so much truth in this book. Each page features a quote or two from famous geek texts (ranging from Shakespeare to internet memes, with plenty of television, movies, and novels in among the mix) along with a brief discussion of why this is important to the hordes of geeks out there or what it has to say about how we geeks see our world.

That's not to say that every single brief essay in this book works. With some quotes, the author's barely touch upon the quote itself and deal with another matter entirely. The best of the essays, though, (and I'll say the majority of the essays are among the best) really touch the heart of the quote in question, distilling the ideas that geeks feel in their hearts, even if the mind can't explain it so succinctly.

For example, the first quote in the book is "With great power comes great responsibility," written by the great Stan Lee. This has become one of the tenants of geekdom (closely followed, I would think, by Wil Wheaton's "Don't be a dick"). And really, it's something we all understand without too much thought. But the authors of the book point out how this affected not just Spiderman, but also George Washington, King David, Albert Einstein, and Franklin Roosevelt (and that Paris Hilton has somehow not come to understand it at all).

Even if you don't care about the discussion, this is a great collection of geeky quotes. I kept saying to myself that a particular quote was my favorite quote, but then I'd turn the page and find one I liked even more. I just have so much love for this book! It really is the perfect gift for any geeks in your life (in fact, I'm thinking I should just buy a box to have on hand as ready-made gifts).

5/5 stars

YA Book Club: Going Bovine

2011-08-01T09:49:00.004-04:00

Welcome to the inaugural Consider the Daffodil YA Book Club, featuring the funny and thought-provoking Going Bovine by Libba Bray. I know that some of the people who are reading this are a bit behind, but I wanted to post this anyway for those of you I don't know in real life who may have already finished the book.

Anyway...

Going Bovine is definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It's a weird fantasy adventure, a mash-up of Percy Jackson and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that talks about physics, obscure diseases, Don Quixote, drag queens, jazz music, religious cults, reality TV, and Norse mythology. It's got a male protagonist who is such an apathetic loser, he can be hard to relate to. And most importantly, it looks death right in the face. This book shouldn't work.

And yet it does (at least for some people, and I count myself among them). Going Bovine allows teens (and everyone else, of course) to get right up into the heart of impending doom (be it our main character Cameron's life or the End of the Universe as we know it) from the safety of a bunch of words on pages.

To be frank, while I was reading the book, I loved little bits but felt overall that it dragged. There were just a few too many set pieces (CESSNAB, PUTOpia, the YA beach house among them). They all felt a little bit like the Las Vegas hotel of the Lotus Eaters in the first Percy Jackson book - yes, I see what you're doing there, but let's move things alone now, please, there's story I want to get to. That having been said, the key elements of the story - much of the discussion below - has really stuck with me, and I think Bray does a good job at confronting mortality within the context of humor and adventure. (She also manages to give an interview in a cow suit quite well.)

I'm not going to summarize the book, although you should feel free to summarize any bits you see fit. I'll post the questions first, then chime in later with my own comments. I really want to hear what you have to say! Feel free to add any of your own questions as well. Spoilers from here on out.

1)For such a funny book, Going Bovine hits on some really big questions (Questions, even). Do you think this balance worked?

2) Why is Cameron's childhood trip to Disney World and his subsequent near-drowning the happiest day of his life?

3)What's up with the snow globes and the United Snow Globe Wholesalers?

4)Did Cameron actually go on this wild adventure? Or was he in his hospital bed the whole time?

5)The "one true thing" Cam learned on his travels, as he tells Dr. X, is that "to live is to love, to love is to live." What do you make of that? How did he come to realize the truth in this Great Tremelo song that he had previously listened to only ironically?

6)The obligatory casting question: Who would you cast in Going Bovine: The Movie? (Cameron and Dulcie probably being the easiest to cast).

Texas Gothic

2011-07-26T20:22:00.005-04:00

I have to admit, I didn't have high hopes for Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore. The description on the back included witches, cowboys, and ghosts. I started flipping through it, though, and immediately recognized it for what it was. It was like home, something comforting from my childhood.

YA wasn't a big thing when I was a teen, and probably most of the YA I read was cheesy teen horror stories by Diane Hoh, Richie Tankersley Cusick, and Christopher Pike (Pike being the high end of the bunch). If you're my age, you know exactly the books I'm talking about, especially the embossed covers with more than their share of neon colors. (Cusick's Vampire was a particular favorite of mine.) These books were easy to read and almost felt like an episode of Scooby Doo (more bad guys being unmasked at the end, less talking dogs and stoners... well, sometimes there were stoners). There was always danger, but never too much to worry about, and the main girl (it was always a girl) used a little Nancy Drew sleuthing to figure out what was going on.

And that's exactly what I found in Texas Gothic. In fact, Nancy Drew is referenced a number of times, so Clement-Moore is obviously a fan of the genre herself. And for this particular sub-genre, the book is well-written, fast-paced, and highly enjoyable. I've seen enough of Texas to understand the environment perfectly, and the Hot Cowboy Neighbor (that might as well be his name) was the right mix of annoying and attractive. I loved the addition of real magic - the main character's family are all real witches, as much as she tries to stay out of that life - gave the story a little more body than others like it.

Is this fine literature? No. But that wasn't exactly what I was looking for on a quiet beach weekend. The high entertainment value of Texas Gothic makes it fun for any horror- or mystery-loving teen (or nostalgic adult). Bonus points for this being a self-contained story as well.

4/5 stars

Inaugural YA Book Club

2011-07-07T10:51:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Consider the Daffodil Young Adult book club! Back in January, my friend Erin and I started a small book club for Boston-area people interested in YA books. When Erin moved across the country a few months ago, I didn't want to wrangle monthly meetings, especially when she and I made up the majority of the group. So here we are - an online book club. The best part is that we're not bound by location anymore, so I'm looking forward to a wider group of people joining in. Please feel free to spread this around to others who are interested in YA literature, and if you have any suggestions, please email them to me.

For our first (online) book, we'll be reading Going Bovine by Libba Bray. The book follows Cameron, something of a high school loser, who develops Mad Cow Disease. In order to find a cure, he goes on a madcap cross-country journey with fellow loser Gonzo. I've already started reading the book, and I've been laughing hard at Cameron's exploits. I'd describe it as Percy Jackson with a touch of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Discussion will begin right here on August 1st.

The Map of Time

2011-06-30T17:25:00.000-04:00

The time travel continues in a much more literary form with The Map of Time. After Ruby Red, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (which is not exactly time travel but does involve traveling through time... what?), and Hourglass, I wasn't sure if I wanted any more of this genre. (And yes, I have read other things with no time travel in between that I haven't written about yet.) But this sounded so different, I couldn't wait to jump in.

"Set in Victorian London with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H.G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence." I have to be honest, I didn't read this bit from the back of the book before I started reading the book. I had been given an even briefer description - Victorian London is in a time-travel fervor after H.G. Wells writes The Time Machine - and was already sold. I'm a big fan of the steampunk sub-genre, and this hinted to having a bit of that aesthetic.

In reality, this book is not one narrative but three, although they do all intertwine and feature H.G. Wells as a main character. And the way author Felix J. Palma handles the idea of time travel in a society with far fewer technologies than our own is masterful. Whether it's the man who wants to save the woman he loved from being killed or the boy who loves a girl and wants to stop her from doing something destructive, these characters approach time travel from very real and, often, very personal perspectives. I especially liked how Palma touched upon the idea of paradoxes repeatedly, because the ideas of changing the past or meeting yourself in the past are something that have to guide the storytelling when dealing with shifting timelines.

As much as I loved this book, which is a bestseller in Palma's native Spain, I had some trouble getting into it. Specifically, the paragraphs are loooong and overly-verbose, although I have a feeling that this was done on purpose to give the book a more Victorian feel. The very beginning, especially, when there is a whole page devoted to which kind of gun a character is going to use to kill himself, can get a bit tedious. Push on,though, like I did, and you'll be well-rewarded.

As a side note, H.G. Wells is a main character throughout this book, and it is mentioned frequently that all of London is so excited by time travel specifically because of his book The Time Machine. While it's quite possible to read this book without having read The Time Machine, I'll take a moment to plug the classic. It's really very short and easy to read, plus you'll sound smart when you say you've read it.

I never read many classics when I was younger (except what was forced upon me in school), so this one had escaped me until a few years ago. Then I discovered DailyLit, which feeds you classics in tiny bite-size pieces that are easy to digest. I had The Time Machine sent to my RSS reader (but you could get them emailed to you too), and in about a month, I had read the whole thing without trying. Best part: it's free. Really, do it. Even if you don't want to read The Time Machine (but you should), give DailyLit a try.

Also, The Map of Time has one of the coolest covers I've seen in a long time.

Check out the first chapter - in text or audio - on the book's website.

5/5 stars

Disclaimer: The advance copy of this book was provided to me for free from the publisher.

Hourglass

2011-06-24T16:38:00.000-04:00

More time travel. See? I'm betting on this being the Next Big Thing. Hourglass by Myra McEntire sounded more paranormal and less time travel on it's back cover, but I assure you, travel through time they do.

Emerson sees people from the past. Like, she's trying to walk through the front door of her apartment, and there's a real straight-off-the-plantation southern belle standing in her way. This started two years earlier, just before her parents were killed in a freak accident, and it's only gotten worse since. Thomas, Em's brother, keeps finding "specialists" to help her, but none of them actually have helped. But when Michael shows up and introduces Em to the Hourglass, she starts to fully understand what's happening to her.

**Here Be Spoilers** Emerson learns from Michael that her ability to see people from other times is actually a small part of her ability, which actually allows her to travel back in time. Michael himself can travel forward in time, and together, they make a perfect pair - like, a-love-greater-than-the-stars perfect. And Dr. Xavier's School - sorry, The Hourglass - is where all the mutants - ugh, sorry again, I mean people with the ability to manipulate time in some manner - learn to hone their skills. **There Be Spoilers**

Is this a ground-breaking novel? No. In fact, there are so many teen girl clichés in here that I got mad at myself at one point for enjoying this so much. But then I just stopped caring because, you know what? This is a fun book, and I was once a teenage girl, so I'm going to revel in the feeling of being 16 again. In fact, I'm pretty sure even if you were never a teen girl, you'll understand.

It's been a while since I was really smitten with a YA novel, but this one hit me full force and made me stay up all night to find out what happened. My only hope is that there are more books about Emerson and the Hourglass coming soon.

5/5 stars

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher through my bookstore job.

What Alice Forgot

2011-06-14T16:37:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you pick up a book and read the back and think that it's going to be a great read, but once you get into it, you realize it's nothing like what you expected. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty was exactly like that for me.

The story sounded intriguing: a woman hits her head while at the gym and wakes up thinking she's 29, happily married, and pregnant with her first child, while in reality, she's a 39-year-old mother of three who's in the middle of a messy divorce. Her life is drastically different than she imagined it would be, and she has to work to gain her memories of the past ten years back.

The actual book was both exactly what it sounded like and completely different than I imagined. That story really is what happened, but while I imagined some great mystery as to why or how Alice's life had tumbled, I was left with fairly standard chick lit drivel about an overworked husband and a missing best friend. I guess I had rose-tinted glasses on when I looked at this book, but I wasn't expecting chick lit.

And while I've read some chick lit that I've absolutely adored (Meg Cabot's epistolary stuff is great, like The Boy Next Door), this left me wanting. Because Alice has a head injury, there is a lot (a LOT) of time spent with her saying "Why don't I know this fact about my life?" and characters rehashing past events. If the book were a hundred pages shorter, it would still have gotten the point across without me wanting to throw it at the wall. Overall, What Alice Forgot is fine as a fun beach read, but don't expect to be captivated.

2/5 stars

Disclaimer: The advance copy of this book was provided to me for free from the publisher.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011-06-08T16:35:00.000-04:00

When the advanced copy of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children came into the bookstore, we passed it around and laughed over how it smelled. There was a serious amount of ink in the book (there are a large number of full-page photos), and that much ink smells strange. But then I read the back cover and I forgot about how it smelled. (Note: I haven't picked up an actual copy to see how it smells.)

When Jacob's grandfather (with whom he was very close) dies suddenly and tragically, Jacob understandably has a hard time dealing with it. He becomes obsessed over the stories his grandfather used to tell him about his youth at a strange orphanage in Wales and the odd photographs he had as proof. So obsessed, in fact, that his therapist and parents think he should visit the tiny island in Wales and see for himself that there is nothing strange going on. Well, that backfires. Wouldn't be much of a story if it didn't.

Like I mentioned, the book is peppered with photographs of odd children, many doing impossible things like floating or creating fire in their hands. Author Ransom Riggs is also a photographer and collector of old photos. He began collecting the images in the book and quickly saw a story forming; he collected more to fill in specific gaps in the story as he wrote. The outcome is that the reader gets a much firmer grasp on these odd people than if there were no images to go along with the text. I'm not saying I want to see this tactic taken with too many more books (I'm sure it would get old), but I love the interplay between the text and images in this case.

The story is fast-paced and quirky. I wanted to know more and more about this odd little Welsh island, both past and present. Jacob's relationship with his father, an ornithologist who accompanies him on his trip, is very realistic, especially their exasperation with each other. As the story went on, the mythology became more and more complex, and there is clearly more than one book's worth of story to be told. Definitely an enjoyable read that is great for both the YA and the adult sets.

4/5 stars

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher through my bookstore job.

Ruby Red

2011-05-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

I'm guessing time travel is the new vampire or zombie, because there is a whole spat of new time-defying stories sitting on my bedside table. Case in point: Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier.

Originally published in German, Gier's story (the first in a trilogy)follows teen Gwen, who lives in the attic of her grandmother's posh London home. Her cousin Charlotte, just one day younger, has been trained all her life for time travel, having been born on the prophesied day. While the whole family waits eagerly for Charlotte to make her "initiation journey," Gwen finds herself slipping out of time - clearly the prophesy got something wrong. The Guardians, the secret society build around this time traveling gene, look down upon Gwen even as they take her under their care, and she follows fellow traveler Gideon as he tried to orient her to the business of time travel (and search for the missing chronograph along the way).

The story is compelling and enjoyable, but I'm not scratching at the walls as I wait for the next one to come out. Some of the characters are much more vivid than others, and unfortunately the narrator Gwen is not one of them. That didn't keep me from wanting to know more about the story, though. The whole deal with the prophesy (there are twelve travelers, each with an assigned precious stone and musical note) makes things more complicated than they need to be, but hopefully more of that will be explained in the following books. I do, however, really like the concept of a gene for time travel that gets passed along through the family lines.

I've read a few translated books lately, and one thing I can say about Ruby Red is that it didn't sound translated. Translator Anthea Bell did a wonderful job keeping the language flowing, very important for a book aimed at teens.

3/5 stars

Page by Paige

2011-05-23T23:06:00.000-04:00

I love graphic novels, but it's extremely rare for one to grab me in the same ways that novels often do. I don't know why - maybe because there is less left to the imagination, or maybe because there is often little to no narration or verbal mood setting - but I'm hard pressed to think of a graphic novel that has really stuck with me or hit me in the gut.

But only a few pages into Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge, I was in love... and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

On the outside, it's a fairly simply YA tale of a girl who moves to the big city and has a hard time finding herself. Of course, along the way, she makes friends and, more or less, discovers her place in the world. Doesn't sound all that exciting. But Gulledge's art allows the reader into Paige's head, filled with all the fears and insecurities of being a teen. The story starts with Paige buying a sketchbook, and the book is at its strongest when dealing less with the plot and more with Paige's emotional sketches.

As someone who makes a fair deal of art, I loved the aesthetics of the book and truly appreciated the call to teens to be creative. I wish I had had such an encouraging book when I was a teen.

Note: You can see more of Gulledge's beautiful art on her blog.

5/5 stars

Divergent

2011-05-01T22:37:00.001-04:00

Hmm, where to start with Divergent . I got my hands on an advanced copy of this book about a month before it was released, and even then, the hype was pretty huge. Everything I read was insanely positive, and I had high hopes that this was going to be something more than a weak Hunger Games copy.

At the start of the book, though, I had a hard time caring all that much. Beatrice lives in a society where everyone is split into one of five factions based on personality traits: Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (honesty), Erudite (intelligence), Amity (peacefulness), or Dauntless (bravery). As a teenager, everyone chooses their faction, but it is rare that anyone leaves the faction in which they've been raised (presumably because those traits would be so hardwired into them by then). Beatrice quickly learns that she is a Divergent (although she doesn't really learn what that means), and she must decide whether to stay in Abnegation or choose another path.

Wouldn't be much of a book if she stayed in Abnegation, now would it?

I really wanted to like this book from the very beginning, but the strictness of the faction traits kept getting in the way. I kept wondering (probably aloud) to myself how this society could reach a place where everyone was so one-dimensional and how it could continue to stay like that. It wasn't until about halfway through the book when anyone within the book seemed to ask these same questions (coincidentally, this is about when I started to enjoy the book).

Also, a majority of the book was something of a training montage, as Beatrice (Tris, now) learns the ways of another faction. If (should I say when?) this gets made into a movie, they would be well-served to make this a total of five minutes. Thank God for cut scenes. I didn't need to read about every instance of her learning to be less selfless.

But like I said, about halfway through the book, the story really starts to pick up, and I found myself as captivated as I had hoped I would be. Tris' burgeoning romance picks up (don't worry, moms, it's very clean and tasteful), and she also starts to learn that maybe the factions aren't as clear-cut as she thought. I finally found myself in her shoes, and I couldn't wait to see where the story was going.

The climax of the story comes along quickly - almost too quickly, considering how much time was wasted on the aforementioned training - and I was left with an ending that did nothing but set up the next book. The story arc's conclusion felt too brief for a book that is almost 500 pages. Of course, I'm still interested in what happens next and will be waiting for the next book, but there could have been a better sense of closure.

Final thoughts? It's an interesting concept for a dystopia, and Roth's writing is strong and compelling. If it were a little shorter, though, it might have made for a stronger story.

4/5 stars

The Night Bookmobile

2011-04-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

On another stumble through the library, I noticed a book by Audrey Niffenegger in the graphic novel section. I loved both of her novels - both The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry - and was intrigued to see what she would do with the graphic novel format.

The plot of The Night Bookmobile is mysterious and enchanting - a woman comes across a bookmobile late late at night, and when she enters, she realizes that she has read all the books on its shelves. The book is a short read, and yet it's compelling. Any book lover can understand the woman's motivations. As a librarian (ok, at least technically), I felt instep with the woman's desire to be close to those things that had provided her with her wealth of knowledge, her personality, and her drive. The ending is a surprise and a bit jarring, but it is one that the reader feels coming almost from the beginning.

I have since made two of my coworkers read this book (it takes no time at all to breeze through, and I'm pretty sure this was the first graphic novel that either of them have ever read), and they both enjoyed it as well. If graphic novels scare you off, think of this one more as an adult picture book. This one is worth adding to your collection and coming back to from time to time.

5/5 stars

Good Neighbors

2011-04-10T23:32:00.001-04:00

I recently stumbled upon the podcast Geek's Guide to the Galaxy and have been devouring the past episodes. I find the hosts interesting (although a little too true to the geek stereotype, and I often find myself shouting at the radio that they're wrong about things they know nothing about, like the entire horror genre, but I digress) and informative. For a podcast hosted by an author and an editor, you would assume that all their guests would be in the book world, but that pleasantly isn't the case.

Holly Black, author of the Spiderwick Chronicles, amongst other things, was a guest about a year ago. I enjoyed her episode very much, and although I wasn't left with a strong desire to read her most famous works, I was intrigued by her description of a graphic novel series she had written called Good Neighbors. She hooked me with the premise - a woman goes missing, and her husband is blamed, but their daughter believes that there are more supernatural things at work - and when I saw all three books in the series sitting next to each other at the library, I pounced.

I am glad that I took out all three books at once, because I'm not sure I would have made the effort to go back for them otherwise. I was simply not wowed by this series. The concept itself is very cool and the writing was good enough, but the art is just as important as the story in a graphic novel, and that's where I felt this one fell short. I had a hard time telling characters apart at times, and some characters seemed to change specific characteristics (the things you need to tell people apart!) from scene to scene.

Although, to be truthful, part of the problem may just be that I don't care that much for fairies (or faeries, or however you want to spell it). There are just so many supernatural creatures out there to read about, and fairies have always been pretty far down on my list. I don't care much for the fairy plotlines in the Sookie Stackhouse books either. I will say, though, that Holly Black has clearly made a spot for herself in a world filled with supernatural stories. I have had her book Tithe highly recommended to me, so I think that will be my next try at her work.

2/5 stars

Ship Breaker

2011-04-07T10:16:00.000-04:00

I've been hearing such amazing things about author Paolo Bacigalupi for a while now, and I walk by his novel The Windup Girl every day. When his YA novel Ship Breaker came up on the list for our YA book group, I was happy to have a reason to finally read him.

And can I say how happy I am that I did? Less than half-way through Ship Breaker, I had to buy a copy of Windup Girl because I loved his writing so much. His descriptions of a world in which the environment is battling back against us and people work in harsh conditions make everything seem disturbingly real.

Nailer, our protagonist, lives and works on a beach on the Louisiana coast, scuttling through ducts on a grounded oil tanker, dragging costly metals like copper back to the surface to sell. When a city killer storm (the kind of storm that has made this world rebuild New Orleans three times) rolls through and the beach community gets destroyed, Nailer and his friend Pima venture down the beach to see what washed up during the storm. What they find, though, is one of the nicest ships they've ever seen, a true bounty of scavengable material. Of course, they find something more precious than even they expected, and then Nailer is forced to leave the only home he's ever known to protect it.

There are many things going for this novel. First, the main character is a boy, so rare in well-written YA. Second, there are no creatures to deal with (genetically-designed half men aside), and the frighteningly real environment and plain human nature are the things that cause trouble. Third, this is a world that it is easy to imagine could come about, and thinking through how we could get from here to there is a great exercise for kids. There needs to be more of this in YA - good, straightforward sci-fi storytelling.

5/5 stars

The Girl Who Was On Fire

2011-03-31T10:00:00.003-04:00

It probably took me ten or so pages to absolutely fall in love with the Hunger Games a couple of years ago. I devoured the first book, then held off on reading Catching Fire because I had heard it ended with a cliffhanger, and I don't have a good track record with unfinished series. But the pull was too great, and I dove into book 2 well before Mockingjay came out. And you better believe book 3 was waiting on my doorstep the day it came out.

I routinely try to push the series on readers who come into the bookstore, even one older woman, who was going on vacation and seemed to like everything else I suggested for her. When parents say it sounds too scary or gory (I have a whole rant on this, believe me), I assure them that the themes of the book are much larger than gore, and that I think the whole series (really, the third book, but you can't get there without the previous two) will be taught in schools one day. Most of them don't believe me and choose books for their kids that are "safe." But I digress.

I have been a big fan of the types of books that look at pop culture through a more academic lens (The Simpsons and Philosophy was the textbook for a class I taught in college about our favorite yellow family and American society). So when I heard that there would be a Hunger Games equivalent, I couldn't wait to read it.

The Girl Who Was on Fire is not another Steig Larsson book, but it is a dive into the world of Panem and the Hunger Games. The assorted essays from authors of all sorts and edited by Leah Wilson touch on the topics of reality TV, politics, the science behind the muttations, why the Capitol should have realized that Katniss might not be the best person to act as Tribute, and a variety of others.

My two favorite essays are "Bent, Shattered, and Mended" by Blythe Woolston and "Team Katniss" by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Woolston examines the instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) throughout the series and shows how the events in Panem affected the characters in different ways. Barnes creatively turns our society's willingness to turn books like this into battles between the love interests (Team Gale vs Team Peeta) into a look at why Katniss' pick of a partner has less to do with who she loves and more to do with her discovering who she really is.

Some of the book is repetitive, but that's always true of compilations in which the authors don't necessarily know what the others are writing about. If you were left unhappy by Mockingjay like so many people were (I was not among that group), this book might help resolve some of your issues by helping you see why certain events actually made sense (the PTSD chapter was particularly helpful in this, I feel).

4/5 Stars

A resurrection, a rejuvination, a resurgence, a renaissance, a return, a regeneration; or, too much time spent looking at the thesaurus

2011-03-27T09:57:00.002-04:00

This blog has laid dormant for quite a while, and now seems as good a time as any to bring it back to life. When I first started Consider the Daffodil in 2008, I was deep in the middle of working full-time and going to school nights for my masters degree in Library Science. That quickly turned into no work but full-time school, and why I thought I could keep writing about books I read, I'll never understand. I started using it as an excuse not to do my class reading, and so I let the blog fall to the wayside.

Now, though, almost two years post-grad school, I've found myself in a situation that leads pretty perfectly to a book blog. Right out of school, I didn't get a fancy library or archives job like I had hoped; in fact, I struggled for over a year to get anything, even a retail job. A recession is the perfect time to graduate, right? I'm slightly more on track now, with a job at a local historical house (archival work included, although its mostly administrative) and a job at a Boston-area independent bookstore.

This bookstore, to put it lightly, is eccentric. Books seem to be placed randomly, although there really is a system in place (I promise). During my first few weeks there, I was certain I would never be able to locate books for customers, and now I'm able to fly to a shelf before they've even finished telling me what the book is. If you live near Boston, you know the store I'm talking about - feel free to stop in and say hi.

One of the most frequent questions posed to me by my coworkers in the first few weeks at the store was "So what do you read?" They meant it less in a get-to-know-you way and more so they could better understand how I could be useful around the shop. I mentioned sci-fi and fantasy and graphic novels, all things which are fairly under-read amongst the staff. And then I mentioned Young Adult - the Hunger Games, to be specific. Apparently no one in the store read YA, so in a matter of minutes, I found myself the defacto YA bookseller. Since then, I have had YA advanced readers heaped upon me, and these have formed unwieldy, unstable stacks next to my bed.

My friend Erin and I recently started a small YA book club as well, so YA books seem to be raining from the sky. Only two meetings in, we have a small but fairly vocal group.

As a side note, I've recently started listening the to Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, which deals predominantly with science fiction, although it touches on other genres as well. This, in turn, has led me to listen to Pseudopod, Pod Castle, and Escape Pod, all genre short story podcasts. Many times, the hosts of Geek's Guide will refer to classics in the world of science fiction, and although I read tons (and I mean tons) of sci-fi in middle school and high school, I'm finding gaps in my education. So if random old genre novels show up on here, don't be surprised.

American Wife

2008-09-10T09:07:00.003-04:00

When I first saw the ad for Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel, American Wife, I was excited. I loved how Sittenfeld was able to get inside a teenager's head in her first novel, Prep, and I could only expect that she would do the same with this one.

And I was definitely not disappointed. American Wife tells the story of Alice Lindgren Blackwell, wife of the American President. Following events that may lead to substantial trouble for the Blackwell presidency, Alice recounts previous times in her life that have led her to this point. From there, the story is split into 4 sections: Alice's teen years, her work life and first meeting her husband, life as a wife and mother, and finally, her time in the White House. The different sections were a bit uneven, as I found the second and third sections the most compelling. However, Sittenfeld definitely succeeds in capturing Alice's thoughts - as a shy teenager, a mostly-confident-with-herself woman, a wife, a mother, and a public figure. Definitely an engaging and fulfilling read.

There has been much discussion of this book in light that it is basically a fictionalized life of Laura Bush. Thankfully, politics is left out of most of the book - mentioned increasingly in subsequent sections, with the final section most obviously immersed in politics. The key point, though, is that the First Wife is not the President - they are separate people, with separate thoughts and ideas. Considering how little we have heard from Laura in the past 8 years, I found this an interesting take on the personalities within the White House.

Zombie Haiku

2008-08-23T08:38:00.000-04:00

My brother, and by extension, all of our friends and I, have been into zombie stories for a little while now. We all enjoyed World War Z (we're still holding off on our book-club-like discussion until my roommate finishes it), loved Shaun of the Dead, and I have stopped myself from purchasing this zombie action figure set more times than I can count. So when I saw this book, Zombie Haiku, by Ryan Mecum, I knew I had to buy it.

The book is in the form of a man's journal, where he writes haikus about his life. Things start going strangely one day, though, but he keeps writing haikus about his life. When he suddenly finds himself a zombie, what else can he do but continue with the haikus?

My favorite one in the book was (and I'm paraphrasing this):
Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains.
Brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains, brains,
Artificial hip.

If you enjoy zombie humor (and really, who doesn't?), give this book a peek.

Huh, apparently zombie haikus are a thing? Look here and here.

A Trip to Edward Gorey's House

2008-08-17T21:46:00.001-04:00

Edward Gorey's art is something you don't forget. Even if you can't remember his name, his style stands out. I was introduced to his work through the books of John Bellairs, which I read voraciously as a kid. In high school, I had a poster of the Gashlycrumb Tinies on my wall (my favorite is pictured above). So when my mother mentioned that he had lived on Cape Cod and his house was open as a museum, I jumped at the chance to visit.

The Edward Gorey House is located in Yarmouthport, right off route 6A. Tours are free and run about 20 minutes. Gorey was quite the collector, and the house is filled with his various collections, such as stones that he would pick up on his walks or large rings that he would wear. My favorite was the cheese grater collection, including the Greater Graters and the Lesser Graters. The best part, though, is that all of the Gashlycrumb Tinies are represented throughout the house, and they give you a checklist so you can make sure you've found them all. Some are easy (a little doll is literally falling down the stairs, for "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs") while others are only representative (like a box of tacks on a shelf for "L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks").

The museum houses a unique mix of personal items and career-related objects that makes it seem like very little was done to the place after Gorey's death. I'd heartily recommend a visit to anyone who finds themselves on Cape Cod, Gorey fan or not.

The Road

2008-08-13T23:24:00.003-04:00

I love dystopian fiction - the grittiness, by definition, highlights aspects of human nature that don't often appear in other genres. So when I heard about Cormack McCarthy's The Road, I was excited - a man and boy walk towards what they hope is (relative) safety. Everything I've read about the book has hailed it as a post-apocalyptic masterpiece - it was even an Oprah book (which, in most cases, is a mark against in my book) and is being made into a movie.

So imagine my disappoint when I read something like this:

Whats that?
Where?
There. Theres a house.
I’ll go take a look. Take the gun.
No, I’m scared.
I know.
What if the bad guys come?
You can come with me youd like.
The man knew he wouldnt want to be alone.
Okay.
Okay.

Note that this is not the text of the book, but it's so damn close, it's hard to tell. I mean, I was expecting some great masterpiece, but all I got a rough sketch of a story with sporadic punctuation and meaningless dialogue. The most interesting parts of the story - mainly, when the man and boy encounter others - were also the most difficult parts to read, as adding more voices than the narrator, the man, and the boy without any indication of who was speaking made it much too confusing. And even if the story and dialogue had been stronger, I don't think I could have looked past the grammar - why use apostrophes in some places but not others! It's maddening, like McCarthy just simply couldn't be bothered to adhere to any rules.

Water for Elephants

2008-08-13T20:50:00.000-04:00

I was never a big fan of the circus as a kid. There was always too much going on, too much noise, too much activity. But when I started watching Carnivale on HBO a few years ago, I loved the gritty, dirty feel of the Depression-era circuses. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen tells a similar gritty, dirty story.

Gruen’s research is what makes this story worth reading. The daily life of a circus is brought to life through the pages of Water for Elephants in a very compelling way. The story is interesting, but I was driven to read by the desire to know more about the time period. Even if you don’t think the subject matter would interest you, this book is definitely worth reading – it would be hard not to be interested in it by the end.

Breaking Dawn

2008-08-07T20:37:00.003-04:00

It’s been a while since I have been quite so excited about the release of a book – I think Ellen Emerson White’s Long May She Reign (the continuation of a series that I read when I was actually a teenager) was the last book I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. So I let my inner 16-year-old girl out for the release of Breaking Dawn, the final book in the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, and spent an entire day (my birthday, in fact, and an enjoyable birthday it was) just reading.

Was I right to get so worked up for this book? Yes… and no. The first three books (well, really just books one and three) totally captivated me. Just the fact that they were able to make me think like a 16-year-old again was a testament to Meyer’s writing. But with all the Twilight talk (both about this new book and the horrible miscasting of the upcoming movie), the book just couldn’t meet the hype.

The biggest problem that struck me was that the story read like fanfiction – stories written by fans who can’t give up on their favorite characters. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some excellent fanfic out there, but I expect a little more from someone so in charge of the story and from something I’m paying money for. Breaking Dawn even adheres to the fanfic tenant that the characters you love the most suffer the most – I mean, Bella has always been a little too clumsy, a little too breakable, but come on… really?

Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed the middle section of the book, told from Jacob’s POV. I was highly pissed off at the end of Eclipse, when the narration slipped to Jacob without warning, but in this case, I was relieved not to be in Bella’s head for a little while. And through Jacob, there was much to learn about the way the La Push pack operates.

Honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about the finale. There was so much build up for very little conclusion. But I guess that just means that I’ll have to turn to the real fanfic now to find some more good Twilight stories…

Duma Key

2008-08-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

As a long-time Stephen King reader, I know that I'll eventually pick up any book that he writes. I've had Duma Key sitting around for a while - it's pretty thick, and I wasn't up for investing the time in it. But after hearing several times that it was his "return to form," I was ready to give it a try.

And in a way, it is a return to form. The scene is clearly set, the characters (bizarre backstories and all) are well defined, and the strange supernatural villain is creepy as all get-out. But it's also a little slower than his past works - the first two-thirds took me two weeks to read, while the final third was completely gripping and took only two days.

Edgar Freemantle, late of Minnesota, takes up residence on Duma Key in Florida following a disastrous accident. While there, he meets his eccentric neighbors, including the old woman who owns the island, and discovers an unknown talent for painting. But the paintings hold a strange ability to bring his ideas to life, dictated by the powers of the island.

There are many images, especially from the last third of the book, that will be sticking with me for a long time. King is still a master at describing a moment so creepy that it burns its way into your memory. And while I don't think I would recommend this as an entry point into King's repertoire, it is a solid piece of writing that won't be soon forgotten.

The Gargoyle

2008-07-30T13:00:00.001-04:00

The setup of The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson sounds a bit like a Stephen King novel (especially his recent books that deal with convalescents) - a horribly burned man meets a brilliant gargoyle carver/mental patient who convinces him to come back to her place after he is released from the hospital. The narrator (our burned ex-porn star semi-hero) isn't sure about Marianne Engel (the artist/schizophrenic) at first, mostly because she claims to be over 700 years old and to have known him in a past life. But he begins to trust her and does eventually end up at her home, where he learns the story of their past relationship.

I really loved this book, but for reasons I can't quite explain. It's not like I have anything in common with any of the characters or their situations. I think it's more the "1001 Arabian Nights" quality of Marianne's storytelling that captured me - the narrator longs to hear more about the perceived relationship between himself and Marianne, but she keeps interjecting other tales of love lost. By the time he understands his feelings for her, though, those other stories are as much a part of him as they are of her. In fact, it was the past-life story, along with the other stories that Marianne told, that were the most compelling part of the narrative for me - I cared more about the lovers from the past than the horrors of the present.

I really enjoyed Davidson's writing style because it wasn't overly fancy. Rather, the story is told by someone who has had a lot of time to reflect on what happened, and as such, is described in very realistic terms. Such a strong narrative is hard to find in a debut book, and I'm curious to see what else Davidson can do.

Last Night at the Lobster

2008-07-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

I picked up Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan randomly from my school library's small fiction collection, mostly because I find Red Lobster hilarious. See, there are no Red Lobsters in Massachusetts, and my mother gets in a rage whenever she sees a commercial for one on TV - "the closest Red Lobster is in Connecticut" she yells at the screen, "stop telling me about them!" So a book about a Red Lobster in Connecticut closing made me laugh.

I had never read anything by O'Nan, but I've heard good things. At first, I was a little turned off by his writing style - it's almost overly-literary for such a mundane topic. But it didn't take me long to appreciate it, as details are described in ways that make them completely true to life. O'Nan managed to make something as boring as a defunct chain restaurant beseiged by snow seem compelling. I'm not saying that Last Night at the Lobster is an earth-shattering book in any way, but it's an enjoyable, highly readable short novel. I'm glad that I've given O'Nan a shot, and I look forward to reading more of his books.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor the the Nation, Vol. 1

2008-07-09T13:30:00.000-04:00

Octavian is raised in a world of science and is told from a young age that he is an exiled prince of a great African nation. However, when rumblings of revolt shatter the walls of the lyceum, the true nature of Octavian's birth and life are revealed.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party opens in a time and place which are unclear, but as the story unfolds, it is clear that it takes place in Boston just before the American Revolution. The writing style, mostly in the voice of Octavian himself, is therefore very florid and somewhat archaic, making it very hard to digest as a Young Adult novel. In fact, because of the writing style, I can't picture many young adults getting far enough into the book to discover the historical aspects of it. That's not to say that it's not a good book - just that it may be missing the mark a bit.

I did have another problem with the writing style - Octavian's narrative is interspersed with letters from various characters, which is fine, as they add another depth to the narrative. However, about two-thirds of the way into the book, the narration changes to letters written by one Patriot soldier, who happens to meet and befriend Octavian. Then, there is another abrupt switch back to Octavian's POV. This was terribly jarring to me and, while I realize that Octavian wasn't in his usual mindset during that part of the story, I felt a bit cheated to only get the soldier's side of the story.

Overall, I can't say that I recommend this book, unless you are really interested in historical fiction dealing with the American Revolution. For stories dealing with that time period, though, this is a breakthrough novel, both in terms of the narrator and in the narration style. if you enjoy this book, Volume 2: The Kingdom of Waves, will be released in October.

Queen of Babble in the Big City

2008-07-03T16:11:00.004-04:00

Lizzie met the man of her dreams and found her calling in France. Now she's moved to New York to try to make both of those things work for her. She jumps into living with her boyfriend Luke, after only a few weeks together, and is forced to take an unpaid job reworking wedding dresses to make her career goals. Of course, things are less than stable, and Lizzie has to stand up for what she wants.

In typical over-the-top style, Queen of Babble in the Big City is an enjoyable, fast-paced chick lit novel. I mean, there's really nothing earth-shattering with this series, but Meg Cabot knows how to handle funny, self-deprecating, driven women. I prefer her books The Boy Next Door, Boy Meets Girl, or even the Heather Wells mystery series (which begins with Size 12 Is Not Fat), but the Queen of Babble series is a good time. Book 3, Queen of Babble Gets Hitched, was just released, so I'm sure I'll be picking that up soon for a beach read.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Wrap Up

2008-06-30T10:09:00.002-04:00

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
Hour 21 - I had just woken up from an impromptu nap and was having a hard time wanting to stick my nose back in a book.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley was hilarious, and each essay was fairly short, which kept things moving along. Also, if you like ancient mythology, all of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series is a blast, and as children's books, just fly by.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
No, it was very well run.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?
Seperate posts each hour (on Dewey's site, as well as my own and of other readers) made it easy to know what was currently going on.

5. How many books did you read?
5+

6. What were the names of the books you read?
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot, Best Food Writing 2007 (haven't finished it yet)

7. Which book did you enjoy most?
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley - I will now be recommending/buying copies of it for everyone I know.

8. Which did you enjoy least?
Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen - random musings of the author as he roamed around the country. It felt like there was a lot left out (because, obviously, 60 days on the road would leave you with a lot of material).

Also, Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, which is now my least favorite work of his... although, I still enjoyed it for the Chuck-isms - the pacing, the rhythm, the language...

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
I was a Reader, and was quite focused on my books.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?
I'd like to, but if it's in October, school might be taking up too much time - maybe as a Cheerleader.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 24

2008-06-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

Whew! I made it (and it looks like a good chunk of other people did too!) This was a very light hour, as I'm just exhausted now. Time for a nap, then a shower, then vegging out for the rest of the day.

This hour
Book read: Best Food Writing 2007
Pages read: 15
Time spent reading: 20
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot, Best Food Writing 2007
Pages read: 1385
Time spent reading: 16 hours 23 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 23

2008-06-29T11:01:00.001-04:00

Almost there!

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot, Best Food Writing 2007
Pages read: 46
Time spent reading: 41
Food and drink consumed: popcorn, water

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot, Best Food Writing 2007
Pages read: 1370
Time spent reading: 16 hours 3 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 22

2008-06-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 69
Time spent reading: 53
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1324
Time spent reading: 15 hours 22 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 21

2008-06-29T09:02:00.001-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 18
Time spent reading: 17
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1255
Time spent reading: 14 hours 29 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 20

2008-06-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 32
Time spent reading:30
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1237
Time spent reading: 14 hours 12 minutes

You fall asleep for half an hour, and then exciting things like winning a box full of books happens... ;)

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 19

2008-06-29T07:01:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 71
Time spent reading: 55
Food and drink consumed: iced coffee and macadamia nut cookie

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1205
Time spent reading: 13 hours 42 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 18

2008-06-29T05:59:00.001-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 52
Time spent reading: 42
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1134
Time spent reading: 12 hours 47 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 17

2008-06-29T05:04:00.001-04:00

This hour
Book read: Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 42
Time spent reading: 42
Food and drink consumed: Peppermint stick ice cream

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot
Pages read: 1082
Time spent reading: 12 hours 5 minutes

Red Eye, Black Eye

2008-06-29T04:03:00.002-04:00

Red Eye, Black Eye is an autobiographical graphic novel, chronicling K. Thor Jensen's 60-day, 10,000-mile Greyhound bus trip across America. There's no real story, just stops along the way, where he met people he only knew from the internet and basically just trusted himself to the road for two months. This is the underbelly of America - no shiny tourist spots (well, he does visit Disneyland... but then vows never to have fun again). It's a very quick read, and certainly not earth-shattering, but quite enjoyable.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 16

2008-06-29T03:59:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
Pages read: 242
Time spent reading: 42
Food and drink consumed: iced pomegranate green tea

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
Pages read: 1040
Time spent reading: 11 hours 23 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 15

2008-06-29T02:59:00.003-04:00

This hour
Book read: Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
Pages read: 62
Time spent reading: 12 (graphic novel pages fly by)
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan, Red Eye, Black Eye by K. Thor Jensen
Pages read: 798
Time spent reading: 10 hours 41 minutes

Mostly, though, I've been trying to visit as many blogs as possible.

The Titan's Curse

2008-06-29T02:20:00.004-04:00

The Titan's Curse is third in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. Overall, the stories are getting a little repeatative, and yet, I couldn't put it down. I'm still totally enamored of the melding of ancient myths with modern life. The first book of the series, though, still holds the most magic for me.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 14

2008-06-29T02:07:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 71
Time spent reading: 56
Food and drink consumed: more potato chips, water

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 736
Time spent reading: 10 hours 29 minutes

This hour's mini-challenge is to learn 5 interesting facts about the place where your current book takes place. Since I just finished The Titan's Curse, I'll take a look at Mount Olympus (although in these books, Mount Olympus can be found at the 600th floor of the Empire State building in New York...)

-Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, and it is amongst the highest mountains in all of Europe.
-Mount Olympus is noted for its very rich flora.
-Any climb to Mount Olympus starts from the town of Litochoro, which took the name City of Gods because of its location on the roots of the mountain.
-In the Iliad, Zeus says that if he willed, he could hang Earth and Sea from a pinnacle of Olympus.
-It was an abode of perfect blessedness:
"No wind ever shakes the untroubled peace of Olympus; no rain ever falls there, or snow; but the cloudless firmament stretches around it on all sides and the white glory of sunshine is diffused upon its walls" - Homer

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 13

2008-06-29T01:01:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 65
Time spent reading: 45
Food and drink consumed: water

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 665
Time spent reading: 9 hours 33 minutes

And while reading The Titan's Curse, I almost spit out the water I was drinking when the heroes end up at the Hoover Dam. When I was in middle school, my whole family (everyone on my dad's side) took a trip to Las Vegas, including a trip to the Hoover Dam. And the funniest part was that my cousin didn't want to go on the tour, so he went right to the cafeteria (called the Snacketeria there) and bought a hot dog. And what came with that purchase? A bumper sticker that read "I got a dam dog at the Hoover dam."

From The Titan's Curse:

“Let us find the dam snack bar,” Zoe said. “We should eat while we can.”

Grover cracked a smile. “The dam snack bar?”

Zoe blinked. “Yes. What is funny?”

“Nothing,” Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. “I could use some dam French fries.”

Even Thalia smiled at that. “And I need to use the dam restroom.”

“And I want to use the dam water fountain,” Grover said.

“And…” Thalia tried to catch her breath. “I want to buy a dam T-shirt.”

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 12

2008-06-29T00:02:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 46
Time spent reading:33
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 600
Time spent reading: 8 hours 48 minutes

And Vasily's mini-challenge this hour is to find a poem and post it. This is one of my favorites, from the appendix of Mark Z. Danielewski's amazing novel "House of Leaves."

You shall be my roots and
I will be your shade,
Though the sun burns my leaves.

You shall quench my thirst and
I will feed you fruit,
Though time takes my seed.

And when I'm lost and can tell nothing of this earth,
You will give me hope.

And my voice you will always hear.
And my hand you will always have.

For I will shelter you.
And I will comfort you.
And even when we are nothing left,
Not even in death,
I will remember you.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 11

2008-06-28T23:01:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 66
Time spent reading: 50 minutes
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 554
Time spent reading: 8 hours 15 minutes

This hour's mini-challenge is Mid-Event survey:
1. What are you reading right now?
The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan - a great children's series

2. How many books have you read so far?
On my third!

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?
Red Eye, Black Eye, a graphic novel by K. Thor Jensen that I grabbed from my school's "Diversions" collection. It looks really interesting, and I should be able to fly through it.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?
Ha, no. Although, I suppose, my school readings might suffer a little tomorrow.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?
The only interruptions I've had have really been more of annoyances - I have a ton of fruit flies in my apartment right now from our indoor herb garden. Know a good way to get rid of fruit flies? Other than that, my roommate is out, and for once, my pet bird is being quiet.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?
How fast it's going by. It's really been 11 hours?

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?
Nope (not yet, at least... maybe after I've slept...)

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?
Again, I'm going to need some sleep to gain perspective on this... ;)

9. Are you getting tired yet?
Can you tell?

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?
Picking different genres is a great way to keep interested, and children's books (like, the level before YA) or YA books are fast reads and can be quite captivating.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 10

2008-06-28T22:02:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 62
Time spent reading: 48 minutes
Food and drink consumed: macadamia nut cookie, iced coffee

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, The Titan’s Curse (Book 3 of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series) by Rick Riordan
Pages read: 488
Time spent reading: 7 hours 25 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 9

2008-06-28T20:58:00.003-04:00

This hour
Book read: I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 18
Time spent reading: 14 minutes
Food and drink consumed: brie and crackers, water

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 426
Time spent reading: 6 hours 37 minutes

I Was Told There'd Be Cake

2008-06-28T20:45:00.003-04:00

I feel like I've found a sister and friend in Sloane Crosley. In I Was Told There'd Be Cake, her writing is witty and funny and full of things I wish I could come up with. She's like a female mixture of David Sedaris (for awkward family stories) and Chuck Klosterman (for pop culture references). This is definitely one of the best books I've read this year.

I've put a few quotes from the book in my last few posts, mostly because I'm alone in my apartment and, as with anything really funny, there's the desire to share it with someone.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 8

2008-06-28T19:59:00.004-04:00

This hour
Book read: I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 52
Time spent reading: 50 minutes
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 408
Time spent reading: 6 hours 23 minutes

Best quote of the hour? "In my lame pescetarian defense, it's very hard to be a girl and say you won't eat something. Refuse one plate of bacon-wrapped pork rinds and you're an anorexic. Accept them and you're on Atkins. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and you're bulimic. Best to keep perfectly still and bring an IV of fluids with you to dinner."

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 7

2008-06-28T18:59:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 46
Time spent reading: 50 minutes
Food and drink consumed:

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 356
Time spent reading: 5 hours 33 minutes

Best quote of the hour: "Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there."

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 6

2008-06-28T18:01:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 29
Time spent reading: 30
Food and drink consumed: strawberry lemon bars, iced pomegranate green tea

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 310
Time spent reading: 4 hours 43 minutes

Snuff

2008-06-28T17:24:00.004-04:00

Oh, Chuck, what have you done. Here I am, defending your last two books (which still remain my favorites), and you disappoint me. Snuff seems like only a sketch of what your other books are.

Snuff tells the story of porn star Cassie Wright, who wants to break records by being filmed with 600 men in one day. It will be her crowning achievement, and perhaps the definitive film in the genre. The story is told by three of the gentlemen (Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600), as well as Wright's (female) assistant. Unfortunately, unlike most of of Palahniuk's characters before this, the characters seemed one-dimensional in their quirkiness.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 5

2008-06-28T17:05:00.003-04:00

This hour
Book read: I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 56
Time spent reading: 52 minutes
Food and drink consumed: water

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 281
Time spent reading: 4 hours 13 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 4

2008-06-28T15:59:00.004-04:00

This hour
Book read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 44
Time spent reading: 46 minutes
Food and drink consumed: corn, tomato, and avocado pasta salad, mini Kit Kat bar

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk, I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Pages read: 225
Time spent reading: 3 hours 21 minutes

Best quote of the hour: "Every time I open the drawer, it's a trip down Memory Lane, which, if you don't turn off at the right exit, merges straight into Masochistic Nostalgia Highway." Crosley is highly quotable and very funny.

This hour's mini challenge from Vasily asks for quotes from favorite books. I've written about it before, but the Dark Tower series by Stephen King is definitely on my list of favorites. The world he created is so realistic, and I feel like I really know the characters (from that world and from our own). My favorite quote runs throughout the series and is based on the idea that the gunslingers (knights, basically) hold honor in remembering where they have come from:

I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I am with my eye.

I do not shoot with my hand. He who shooots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.

I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 3

2008-06-28T15:01:00.002-04:00

This hour
Book read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 54
Time spent reading: 49 minutes
Food and drink consumed: water

Total
Books read: Penny Arcade, Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 181
Time spent reading: 2 hours 35 minutes

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 2

2008-06-28T14:01:00.004-04:00

This hour
Book read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 60
Time spent reading: 46 minutes
Food and drink consumed: Trader Joe's Ridge Cut Red Bliss Potato chips

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 127
Time spent reading: 1 hour 46 minutes

Mini-Challenge
Check out a web comic for at least 10 minutes
Nymeth's challenge included links to a bunch of different web comics, including Penny Arcade. I have a couple of friends who read that quite often, so I thought I'd give it a try. Overall, very amusing, but I'm not sure I'm geeky enough for it (don't get me wrong, I'm very geeky...). This was my favorite out of what I read, because a friend keeps trying to get me to read the series, and I keep saying "but the first one is boring..."

My favorite web comic? xkcd

24 Hour Read-a-thon: Hour 1

2008-06-28T13:00:00.003-04:00

This hour
Book read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 67
Time spent reading: 60 minutes
Food and drink consumed: Ice coffee

Total
Books read: Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Pages read: 67
Time spent reading: 60 minutes

Hour 1 Mini-Challenge
Where are you reading from today? Brookline, Massachusetts. It's rainy and gross, so a perfect day to stay inside, curled up with a good book.

3 facts about me …
-I'm new to this whole book blogging thing... I'm much more comfortable writing about food, as I've been blogging on that topic for over a year.
-I'm in library school right now, focusing on archives, and in the grand scheme of things, I'd love to work in an archaeology archives some day.
-I've written two novels (both awful), and I'm looking forward to working on some other ideas I've got, because they've got to be better than what I've already done ;)

How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
Too many. My friends have been acting as my pushers for the past couple of weeks (I've been doing the same for them, though), so there's plenty on hand. In fact, I'm probably going to have a hard time deciding what to read next.

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
My goal is to read a variety of different books - at least one popular lit, one kid/YA, one memoir, one graphic novel... vary it up.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!!!! (I mean, read...)

2008-06-28T11:59:00.003-04:00

Well, it's time! Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon starts now. My friends (hi, guys) think I'm a little crazy (ok, more than a little), but I'm really looking forward to it. I love reading, and I love exploring new blogs and meeting other bloggers, so this is going to be a good time.

I'm starting off with Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Snuff. I love his writing, although my favorites (Haunted and Rant) have received quite a bit of critisism (especially Haunted, which I think is much more fully realized than most people think).

And for the rest of the day? Well, my To-Be-Read pile has always been large, but my friends have been plying me with books in preparation for this, so I have more on hand than I can handle. Popular literature, graphic novels, chick lit, food writing, fantasy, sci-fi, YA, and whatever else falls on my plate.

And since my first blog is about food, I had to cook up some exciting stuff to have on hand. Most notably, I made some tasty strawberry lemon bars for that much-needed sugar high, and I've also got lots of iced tea and awesome iced coffee on hand. Oh, and a yummy, fresh pasta salad and chocolate.

All right, enough typing. Time to read...

Eclipse

2008-06-26T11:09:00.004-04:00

I finished Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, a while ago and just forgot to post. I have to say, I was quite happy with this book, as it was much more exciting than New Moon. That's not to say that Bella wasn't whiny or didn't pass out randomly... Rather, I enjoyed the love triangle more having all three people in the same place, and I liked the uneasy truce that Edward and Jacob come to in order to protect Bella.

**Here be spoilers**

I found the battle with Victoria and her babies very exciting, and learning the details of the main battle in the field only after the fact made it seem more intense.

One thing that bothered me, though, was the last chapter told in Jacob's POV. I can understand wanting to show his emotions over the impending wedding, but to go three whole books with Bella and then suddenly be with Jacob really threw me for a loop...

**There be spoilers**

And I'm still on Team Edward... although, after Jacob acting as a warming blanket in the tent, I'm beginning to see the light on the whole Team Jacob thing...

Pomegranate Roads

2008-06-24T10:37:00.001-04:00

I'm a huge fan of pomegranates (a passion that predates the whole Pom hoopla) and I often run Amazon searches just to see what will come up. While running one of these searches, I came up with Pomegranate Roads, A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden, by Gregory M. Levin. Levin is a punicologist, or pomegranate specialist, who spent over 40 years at Garrigala, the Soviet botany research station in Turkmenistan. During his time there, he traveled widely and collected over a thousand different pomegranate varieties. Sadly, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Levin was forced to emmigrate, leaving his pomegranate collection to fate.

This book chronicles Levin's research, including many expeditions in search for more plants. Some portions of the book read like an adventure tale, with him surviving car wrecks and treacherous journeys. Other portions, where he focuses on people he worked with over the years, can be a little tedious, although it is sweet that he is paying homage to his colleagues. And as always, I wanted to know more about the mythology behind the pomegranate (although I was happy to read that both Levin and publisher Barbara Baer share my thoughts that the pomegranate was the "apple" that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden).

This is, overall, a fast and enjoyable read. If nothing else, it made me want to live in California so I could have my own pomegranate tree, something that won't happen here in Boston.

To hear an interview with publisher Barbara Baer, visit the Pomegranate Roads website.

The Lace Reader

2008-06-18T10:51:00.003-04:00

I managed to snag an advanced copy of The Lace Reader from a blog at my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith. I'm always up for a book that takes place in Massachusetts, and the Gothic nature of the story sounded fascinating. I have to say, I wasn't let down by this book at all.

Towner Whitney comes from an established Salem family - the men were traders and merchants and pirates. And the women? Psychics and readers - especially lace readers. Towner comes back to Salem after the disappearance of her great-aunt, Eva, who gave lace readings to locals and tourists alike in her tea room. Towner's mother, May, always an eccentric, takes in abused women and children and teaches them to make lace. But Towner herself has been avoiding lace since her twin sister committed suicide as a teen after a lace reading.

The book is itself a piece of finely crafted lace - read it patiently and all of its secrets will appear in time. Keep in mind that Towner's first paragraph includes the line "Never believe me. I lie all the time." Bit by bit, the details behind Towner's past materialize, knitting a web of overlapping truths and lies, light and darkness, as she herself comes to terms with what has happened to her.

Not only did I love the atmosphere and the story, but I fell in love with the lace as well. This book made me want to take up lace-making, and I've tried my hand at coffee reading, so why not lace reading as well?

Also check out the website for the book, which includes the first few chapters to read, tips of reading lace, and a great map of Salem which includes spots in the book.

Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

2008-06-15T14:36:00.003-04:00

I'm a sucker for promotional marketing, and I'm a big Indiana Jones fan, so you know these last few months have been rough on me. There's Indy paraphernalia everywhere, and I have to fight with myself not to buy it all. I was accosted by a table full of Indiana Jones books, and I limited myself to one and went with Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

The book attempts to dissect each movie in order to discuss the scientific fact behind the parts of the story. Does it succeed in doing that? Yes, definitely, but not necessarily in a way that makes it enjoyable or readable.

Reading this book was a lot like reading Wikipedia, but not in the fun way, where you link from topic to topic in a logical string of connections. Instead, topics are broached in the order that they appear in the films, making for pretty disconnected reading. First you're reading about South American native tribes, then about how bullwhips work, then about Nazi airplanes and submarines, ending with a section on Judaism. Yes, all of that is central to the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but reading about them in that order makes the book hard to handle.

World War Z

2008-06-12T22:39:00.003-04:00

After a zombie uprising that leads to a ten-year struggle between humans and zombies, a journalist is sent around the globe to conduct interviews and put together a report based on the events of World War Z. This book (subtitled "An Oral History of the Zombie Wars") is told through the talking-head-style interviews and tracks the path of the zombie uprising and the eventual human victory.

It is a very realistic book - there are many passages where the word "zombie" could easily be replaced with any other foe. With the vivid descriptions in this book, it feels like these events could really happen (which is why it's a good thing Max Brooks also wrote The Zombie Survival Guide, to help us all through the tough times).

I'm personally a huge fan of the talking heads writing style. Last year, I was totally captivated by Chuck Palahniuk's Rant, which uses the same narration style to tell the life story of Buster "Rant" Casey. From what I've heard, many readers have a problem with essentially "starting over" with a new narrator every few pages, but I've found that having all those different points of view make the description of something as global as a World War that much easier to understand. If it were told by one person, the grandiose nature of the story would be minimized from only hearing one side of the story.

Brooks, a former SNL writer, did a fantastic job with this book, and I'd love to see what else he could bring to the page.

New Moon

2008-06-11T09:01:00.001-04:00

New Moon begins with Bella's 18th birthday, with a party hosted at the Cullen's home. But Bella, in typical clumsy style, ends up getting hurt, and once her blood is spilled, the vamps have a hard time resisting. Shortly thereafter, the Cullen's leave town, leaving Bella to her thoughts... and to a burgeoning friendship with Jacob.

Despite Jacob's role in caring for Bella in Edward's absence, I'm still firmly an Edward girl. I think this mostly has to do with Edward's 80-something years of experience and how suave he can be because of that. Jacob is still an awkward teenager, and he doesn't have the weight of "eternity" behind his actions.

Truth be told, I feel a little odd, having been so completely enamored by this series meant for teens. I've read these first two books incredibly quickly, and I'm already well into book three. What are some other great series (YA or not) that have pulled you in?

Then We Came to the End

2008-06-10T20:04:00.001-04:00

I went to my first meeting of the Brookline Booksmith Book Club yesterday to discuss Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris. The group was quite mixed on the book, but the overall rating was 3.6 out of 5.

Then We Came To The End follows a group of coworkers in a Chicago ad agency during the summer of 2001. Lay-offs are rampant, and the staff is abuzz with rumors about who will be next. The group is filled with characters - at least, until you realize that they're not really characters so much as people you know. There's the guy who likes to read inspirational quotes to people, the girl who has to try every new restaurant in the city (yeah, I've been her at times), the couple who are not-so-secretly having an affair, and the one guy who refuses to play along with the whole "game" of office politics.

Every time someone is fired in the book, the term "walking Spanish" is used, referencing how pirates used to lift Spanish sailors up by the scruff of their necks and make them walk on their tip-toes before throwing them off the decks of their ships. I really like the term, and it has found its way into my own vocabulary now. I always have to laud an author who can manage to do that.

My favorite part of the book was something that seemed gimmicky to some of the book club members: it is told in the first person plural - "we". In a book that is ostensibly about the shallow relationships formed at work and the way coworkers get wrapped up in gossip, using "we" allowed the reader to more intimately become a part of the goings-on. The section in the middle, however, detailing one evening in the life of the boss, was told in third person singular, making the jump in point of view jarring. I would have preferred the story to stay with the first voice the entire time, making the reader's (shallow) connection to the characters that much stronger.

24 Hours of Reading? Count Me In!

2008-06-08T20:17:00.006-04:00

Reading for 24 hours straight? Um, yes please.

I stumbled across this blog the other day and saw a post for the 24 Hour Read-a-thon. Starting at 9 am PST (noon here) on Saturday, June 28th, a whole bunch of bloggers (32 are signed up as of right now) will stay up all night to read as much as possible, post on their blogs about their books, and check out other blogs to cheer participants on.

I'm looking forward to checking out everyone else's blogs on the 28th and 29th. Until then, I need to start putting together a reading list - I want to have plenty on hand so I can choose whatever sounds good at the time. Have any suggestions for me?

How to Be a Better Foodie

2008-06-07T10:44:00.002-04:00

Have you ever read a book and felt insulted by it? Yep, that's what I got out of How to Be a Better Foodie: A Bulging Little Book for the Truly Epicurious. It felt too precious, like the author was trying to prove just how much she loves food. She talks about being ahead of the curve for trends and honing the ability to find special ingredients, but she rarely talks about how things taste.

I fear that some readers might see this book as a checklist of things to covet or try in order to become a "Better Foodie." In reality, just knowing what you like and being able to talk that with some degree of knowledge is plenty. On my food blog, I don't pretend to know everything about food; I only talk about my opinions and what I personally find enjoyable. This book is exactly the kind of thing I'm trying to stay away from when I talk and write about food.

The Sea of Monsters

2008-06-03T20:55:00.004-04:00

Wow, I've really been on a YA binge lately. I started the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series last month. The first book, The Lightning Thief, follows Percy Jackson as he finds out that the things that have troubled him his whole life - dyslexia, ADHD, trouble making friends - were all because he was a demigod - half human, half Olympian. Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, meets all the other half-bloods, and goes on a cross country quest to find Zeus' missing lightning bolt.

The second book in the series, The Sea of Monsters, has a similar set-up: Percy comes to Camp Half-Blood suddenly and is presented with a quest - this time to save his satyr friend Grover from being eaten by the cyclops Polyphemus. The resulting travels to the Sea of Monsters (aka the Bermuda Triangle) follow Homer's Odyssey fairly closely, complete with trips to Scylla and Charybidis, Circe's island, and Polyphemus' sheep farm.

With this second book, the idea of a prophesy surrounding Percy becomes more clear as well. It was hinted at in the first book, but here, the prophesy is stated outright - but only before it becomes somewhat unclear as to who it pertains to. Very reminiscent of the whole Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom thing...

Speaking of Harry Potter, this series has claimed a little of the Harry Potter hype. Percy, like Harry, is something of an outcast, even once he is among "his own kind." He has few friends, one of whom is a smart girl who knows she's right about everything. And instead of magic, there's plenty of Olympian gods and monsters popping by, showing off exactly what they can do. Oh, and Chris Columbus is apparently directing the first movie, which should be out in about a year and half.

I originally picked up the first book to give to my nephew, but I was too intrigued not to read it myself. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys Classics, as these stories are able to twist the familiar into something new and fresh.

Twilight

2008-05-25T23:35:00.002-04:00

A while ago, I was reading a thread on LibraryThing about crushes from YA books, and one name kept coming up over and over again: Edward Cullen. I had no idea what book he was from, but I was obviously missing something huge. Around the same time, I started to hear about a new teen vampire movie being made. Being the brilliant woman I am, I put two and two together and got Twilight.

Twilight follows Bella, who moves to the small town of Forks to live with her father in order to give her mother some space with the new husband. Enrolled in her new school, Bella quickly learns that not all of her classmates are friendly; some downright don't want her there. It plays out like a modern, vampire-filled Romeo and Juliet (that is, if the Montagues were undead), filled with furtive glances, swooning, and sigh-filled conversations. Hey, if it worked for Shakespeare...

And what about all those fellow Thingamabrarians who have crushes on Edward Cullen? Yep, I can count myself among their numbers now.

The Dark Tower

2008-05-23T18:16:00.001-04:00

OK, so I'm finally going to post something about... anything. Been long enough, hasn't it?

Much of this past spring has been spent with my friends Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy. For the first time since 2004, when Stephen King finished his epic Dark Tower saga, I read all seven of the books in one go, relishing my time spent with the characters. This is a series that I talk about to (and pretty much push upon) everyone I know, and yet very few have actually taken me up on this journey.

Time and again, I argue that it's one of the greatest series of recent years. And yet, despite King being one of the most famous authors out there, almost no one has read it. Even a lot of hardcore King fans are intimidated by it or think it won't be their cup of tea.

The first book, The Gunslinger, is a big part of why some people won't read the series. Out of all the books, it is the most heavily based in the Western genre - rinky-dink towns in the desert, nameless gunslingers just passing through, the not-quite-innocent woman. You can practically feel the sun beating down on your neck as you read. And yet, it contains one of the most epic sentences ever written - "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

As the books progress, more and more of King's supernatural tendencies show up, and the references to his other books begin to pile up as well. But it's Roland and his ka-tat that hold the story together. They are a family, a tight-knit group, and what happens to them is almost more important that what is happening to the world around them.

**Here be spoilers**

The wait between books 4 and 5 was 8 years, and King was really only pushed to finish the series after his almost-fatal accident in 1999. As a result, that accident plays into the books (especially book 7, The Dark Tower), a fact that apparently caused many readers a good deal of grief. Not me, though.

That's not to say I wasn't pissed when King showed up as a character in book 6 (Song of Susannah). But with book 7, it became clear that that was the only way the story could have happened. Had there been no pressure for him to write the stories, they never would have been written. Had he not come close to death on the side of a road in rural Maine on June 19th of 1999, he might never have had the guts to finish Roland's story.

**There be spoilers**

The Tower took up so much of my thought process while I reread it this year, it even invaded my other blog.

If you've already started the series (or have finished...but then, you're really never done with the Tower, are you?), there are a few great additional resources out there. Robin Furth's Concordance is an encyclopedia of Tower tidbits, sure to entertain and enlighten the most hardcore Tower fans. Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower is also fantastic, and he sums up all of the books while pointing out useful trivia or important themes.

Groundhog's Day - A Little Late

2008-02-08T08:28:00.001-05:00

I'm completely in love with LibraryThing. I mean, yes, I have been a hardcore reader my whole life, and I am in library school now, so I am slightly predisposed to loving something as geeky as a website where you catalog your own books. But for me, it's more about the community where I can talk about what I'm reading - be it the latest bestseller or some obscure tome. I've been a LT member since June 2006 and have managed to get all 640 of my books cataloged.

Besides all the cataloging fun, LibraryThing also runs book pile contests every once in a while. These are my first entries, to this month's Groundhog's Day pile contest. While the books themselves aren't particularly in step with the holiday, I hope the pictures are at least a little amusing.

All the entries can be seen here.

The books on top are the Archaologische Bibliographie 1990-1993, from the library in my office. The books on the bottom are my Dark Tower books, an amazing series by Stephen King. I just started rereading the series for the first time since it was finished. If you haven't read them, now's a good time ;)

A place to consider the daffodils...

2008-02-04T11:08:00.001-05:00

So I talk about food all the time at Cave Cibum. But I occasionally have something other than food to discuss (I know, highly doubtful, but somewhat true). As a voracious reader and a current library school student, books seem like a natural next step. Let me know if you have books to suggest!

The title of this blog comes from the Jack Handy Deep Thought "Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, going through your stuff." I had a hard time deciding between that and "Potato Worship", from the Deep Thought "Worship the potato? The idea seemed silly to me. But then I thought, what else is more deserving of worship? It's simple, it comes from the earth, and it can kill you if you disobey it."