Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
By denise | June 28, 2009
That Violet!
Awe, tiny white van!
Ho, hum, football.
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built was worth waiting for. Not that I really had to wait for it since it came in cassette and large print ages ago. But I didn’t want it in either cassette or large print. I wanted it on CD.
I love this series in general but I really love it in audio.
Topics: 2009, Fiction, Favorites, Books in Bed | 1 Comment »
P&P&Z
By denise | June 26, 2009
I finally finished Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, a book I was very much looking forward to until sassymonkey indicated it wasn’t great.
She was right. It wasn’t great. It was a brilliant idea but I pictured something as wonderfully bizarre as a Christopher Moore book. It wasn’t that wonderfully bizarre. If I hadn’t already had Chris Moore’s version (or what I imagine a Chris Moore version would look like) in my head, I’d have probably enjoyed P&P&Z a good bit more than I did.
Worth reading, yes. Fabulous, not so much.
Topics: 2009, Fiction, Books in Bed | 3 Comments »
Magic Thief: Lost
By denise | June 20, 2009
This is book two in the Magic Thief series, another one that I plucked from my Amazon holding list and I think Lost might have been better than the first one. (A rare occurrence for a second book.)
There are hidden “rune” messages throughout the book and I always spend the time figuring out what they say. TW doesn’t bother with them. The messages in the last book were better than the ones in this book.
I wonder what will happen to poor Conn in book three… and I wonder what will happen to the magic.
Topics: 2009, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Children's Literature, Favorites, Books in Bed | No Comments »
Castle Waiting
By denise | June 19, 2009
I almost forgot to read Castle Waiting! Liz took it up to her room and never brought it back again… until I asked her where it was because it was due back to the library in three days…
Unfortunately, it’s taken more more than three days to read it due to the crazy that is my life. So, I owe a 10 cent fine on an excellent graphic novel. I can live with that.
Did I mention this is an excellent graphic novel.
Liz really liked it. She read it in the car. She read it in the living room, while the TV was on, she read it and read it.
I understand why. I did want to keep reading it and reading it. But I also enjoyed putting it down because of the nice ribbon bookmark built into the book. I really liked that. Nice touch for that book.
Fairy tales with a lot of odd twists.
Topics: Young Adult, 2009, Comics & Graphic Novels, Fiction, Favorites, Children's Literature, Books in Bed | 2 Comments »
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece
By denise | June 15, 2009
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece had me laughing all the way to the bitter end… at which point, I was bitter. I didn’t like the ending.
TW has pointed out that I am often disappointed with the endings of books. She suggests the ending of a book is not important and I could just skip that last few pages or chapters (depending upon the size of the book) and be happier. Hmm she might have a point.
Topics: 2009, Chick Lit, Fiction, Books in Bed | 2 Comments »
The Book of Love
By denise | June 12, 2009
I keep a list on Amazon that tracks books we want to read at some point - these books are either not available at the library when I first hear about them or they are books I don’t have time to reserve due to the current reserve list or our TBR pile. I only look at this list once or twice a year and when I do, I end up reserving a ton of books we should have read ages ago… or a ton of sequels to books we read and enjoyed.
The Book of Love is the second book in a series (The Magdalene Line) and honestly I’d forgotten all about it. I’m not sure why I’d forgotten about it since I really did enjoy The Expected One. Too many books, too little time, I guess.
It took me ages to read this book. I’d read a chapter, or half a chapter, and be falling asleep. I think that’s related to my current work load and not the content of the book. TW sailed through it, even more quickly than she normally sails through books, and she loved it.
I don’t think I liked it as well as I liked The Expected One and that’s because the relationships between the characters “today” didn’t evolve very much. We barely saw Tammy or Roland or even Berenger in this one.
Topics: 2009, Women, Fiction, Books in Bed | No Comments »
links for 2009-06-09
By denise | June 9, 2009
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If you are a blogger, BlogHer is the conference to attend each year. While there will be tons o’ learnin’ going on that weekend, there will also be plenty of opportunities for networking, mingling and cocktailing with fellow bloggers. Because it can be hard to keep track of all the festivities, I thought I’d put together a quick list of some of the hotest parties taking place that weekend. If I’ve missed one, shoot me an email (shannanb(@)Gmail.com) and I’ll add it.
Topics: Discoveries | No Comments »
Literary Bigotry, errr yep
By denise | June 5, 2009
A nice gentleman (gender assumption based on the name and email address attached to the comment) stopped by my post about The Little Stranger and decided to call me out on saying that I was going to boycott Waters’ book because I’d heard there were no lesbian characters.
That was apparently an example of literary bigotry or at the very least, in poor taste to say.
I replied to the gentleman (gender assumption based on the name and email address attached to the comment) that he could spin it that way if he liked and I’d cop to a bit of literary bigotry in this case.
Anyone who stops by here at all knows that I read a heck of a lot of books, most of which don’t have queer characters. I don’t choose a book specifically because it’s queer. I also don’t walk away from a book simply because it isn’t queer (look at what I’m reading now for goodness sakes - that’s as unqueer as they come let me tell you.)
I do however reserve the right to criticize, complain or boycott a writer who has previously gained my respect and my appreciation and my book buying dollars if she stops writing the types of stories I want her to write. Does she have to listen, of course not. Does it make me a bigot? I don’t think so.
But if you think so, I’ll own that. (Thanks to @SarahDopp for the nifty button. She rocks.)
Topics: Queer, Books in Bed | 1 Comment »
Airman
By denise | June 5, 2009
Look! Another Cybil! Airman is the book I was least interested in reading from that category. It turned out to be a pretty darn good book. No way it could beat out most of the books in its category but I can see this one being a favorite among the kids it was written for.
Good, solid hero. Bad guys who were just bad enough to hate. A princess who wasn’t stupid. And just enough adventure to keep a kid reading and reading and reading.
Topics: 2009, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult, Fiction, Children's Literature, Books in Bed | 1 Comment »
A Lion Among Men
By denise | May 31, 2009
I have a love/hate thing with Gregory Maguire.
Loved Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister
Loved Wicked
Hated Mirror Mirror
Did not love Son of a Witch
Bored by Lost
Based on the above, you might be a little bit surprised that I plucked A Lion Among Men off of the large print shelf. I was a little surprised, myself.
After the horrendous book Son of a Witch turned out to be, why would I want to ruin the memory of Wicked further with what would probably be another horrendous muddle up of The Wicked Years.
Well guess what. A Lion Among Men… fabulous. I did not want to put it down. Loved it. And because I loved it, it was worth it to read the hated Son of a Witch (without it, Lion Among Men would not have made sense.)
Yackle, Nor, The Dwarf - they all come together in The Cowardly Lion’s story. Nice. Very nicely written.
Topics: 2009, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Fiction, Favorites, Books in Bed | No Comments »
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