2012

Hawaii Travel Guides

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

Which travel guides are the best? I mean really? Fodors vs Frommers? And what about the Mobile guides? They all seem pretty much the same – so which do people prefer? 

Here are the ones I’ve read so far:

Frommer’s Honolulu and Oahu Day By Day: I like the day by day kind of guides, the ones that give you sample itineraries for days/interests. But, it’s pretty rare for me to find a full day/itinerary that is perfect. I always want to skip some things and add others but I’m never sure whether what I’m adding will really fit in (time/location) with what I’m keeping/dropping. So complicated!

Hidden Oahu: I’m not sure sure that my definition of Hidden is the same as theirs but – I liked some of their recommendations since they weren’t always the same as Fodor/Frommer standard tourist must see recommendations. However, I hated the paper this was printed on.

Oahu: Fodors in Focus: This one was pretty standard – Frommer’s Day By Day-like. Nothing surprising was lurking in there.

Lonely Planet Honolulu, Waikiki & Oahu: This was my favorite of the bunch. I’m a Lonely Planet kind of person. If I buy a guide, it will be this one. Or if I download one to my iPad/iPhone, it will be this one.

Adventure Guide Honolulu, Waikiki, & Oahu (Hunter Guides): This one causes me and TW to spend about a half hour calling various weather and time phone numbers (don’t ask) and I liked the section about local culture, Hawaiian language, and native foods/plants. Again, I hated the paper it was printed on. This was probably my second favorite because it did have some shops and restaurants that none of the other guides included.

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Graphic Novels Galore! (Three Cybils, Two Not.)

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Young Adult /

I went on a graphic novel spree because the week was crazy and those were the easiest things to read when I was super tired and super busy. Some were really good, some not so much, some pretty darn weird.

Tiny Titans: Adventures in Awesomeness – it was more like a comic book than most graphic novels. Short panel stories, single panel posters, word searchy type games. Reminded me a lot of comics from my childhood. But – I don’t really love the Tiny Titans. I just can’t get into them. Then again, I’m not a middle grade graphic novel/comics person, am I? (This was not a Cybils shortlister – I reserved it after seeing it on the recently reviewed list on the library website)

I picked up The Hidden in a drive-by walkthrough of the new release books at the library. Really, it just jumped into my bag. Elly said it was creepy and weird – she was right. Frankenstein gone really really bad but in a good graphic novel sort of way. I loved it. Very creepy and not for little kids. This is an adult (or YA at the very least) graphic novel and not a Cybils shortlister.

Remember American Born Chinese? Well Level Up was written by the same dude – and I liked it. Not as much as American Born Chinese but I definitely liked it. The GI doctor story line was fabulous since we really appreciate good GI docs around here. The Cybils have this one as a YA graphic novel but I can see some middle schoolers getting into it, too.

Bad Island was another kind of creepy graphic novel. A whole lot of bad things can happen to a family that gets shipwrecked on a bad island – when the island isn’t so much an island as it is an alien with evil alien creatures living on it. The dead snake thing – lol – funny in a disgusting sort of way.  Another Cybils YA lister.

Page by Paige was my favorite of this bunch. A teenage girl moves to NYC and she’s dealing with figuring out who she is and what she wants and making friends and all sorts of nifty, frustrating things like that. And, she journals her way through. I loved the artwork. I think this was Elly’s favorite of the bunch, too.  And, yep, this one was on the YA Cybils list as well.

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Aloha from Hell

2012, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I really really like Sandman Slim. He just never gets old, he’s so evil in a good guy sort of way. Being a nephilim will do that to you, I guess.  In Aloha from Hell we get more kissi and more Alice, which is cool. We also get a good long look at Mustang Sally (I think she needs her own series. I bet it would be better than Sandman Slim’s.)  We also get a wee bit of Jack the Ripper – and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

I’m looking forward to the next book (later this year, I believe) – how is Sandman Slim, I mean errr…. His new name…. going to get out of… the place he’s in…. (See how I avoided spoilers there?)

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Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

Well, I did it again. Reserved a book that I obviously didn’t know much about – because I’d seen it mentioned a few times and then seen it mentioned a few more times and then finally saw it mentioned in a way that convinced me that I should read it now. Which, it turns out, was funny in a way that I don’t really want to explain. Let’s just say… people are idiots sometimes. Now where was I…? Oh yea…

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

I thought it was chick lit (see above.)

I thought it was written by a woman (not that it matters.)

It’s neither chick lit nor was it written by a woman.

It was, however, excellent. Really very good. Can’t put it down good, though I did have to put it down on Wednesday night because I started it too late in the evening to read straight through (and man, do I hate it when that happens. You get a book that’s a perfect read straight through book but you start it at 9pm on a work day? That just stinks, doesn’t it?)

I really want to know what happened to Keiko before we meet her again in NYC. I also am interested in Ethel.  I need a sequel. Or a companion book. Or something. These are super interesting characters and I kind of love them. I want to know more.

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We Dine With Cannibals

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature /

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy We Dine With Cannibals. It looked really, really young and then I realized it was from a series – I series I had never read. And I hate reading books in a series out of order. But… I enjoyed it. The twins are normal kids who don’t want to travel all over the world or have wild adventures. They just want to stay home and watch TV and eat snack cakes. Oh how I laughed. And it was a theme that just never got old for me, in this book.

I do wish I’d read the book that came before it though. That would have made it even better for me.

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Awesome Things

2012, Books in Bed, Meme, Non-Fiction /

Do you remember the first time you saw a LOL Cat? Or a Cake Wreck? Or a Post Secret secret? How about an Awkward Family Photo? Remember how cool you thought that was? How funny? How brilliant? How… awesome?

And remember when you got to the point where you never wanted to see another LOL Cat, Cake Wreck, secret or Awkward Family Photo again? Until the book came out and then you reserved your copy early, or you bought as a gift for someone, or you reserved it at the library because that site and all of its brilliance was part of your life for awhile and you have good feelings toward it (and its creators.)

If you do, then you’ll understand what I’m about to tell you about The Book of Awesome, The Book of Even More Awesome, and the Book of (Holiday) Awesome.

Years and years ago, I thought 1000 Awesome Things was brilliant. I loved it. I subscribed to the blog and I read the awesome daily. Until I stopped. Turns out, you can have too much awesome in your life. I had so much awesome burn out that when an awesome thing happened in my own life it felt less awesome because… I just read that exact thing on the blog, which means awesome happens to everyone and some of the shininess of my own awesome seemed to have been rubbed off. So I stopped reading and pretty much forgot about 100 Awesome Things – until last week when I noticed someone had reviewed all three books on my library website.

I felt a tug on my marshmallow insides and I reserved all three books.

And I did not read all three books, word for word, story by awesome story. I learned my lesson about awesome overload years ago – instead I read about half of The Book of Awesome and then flipped through the rest. I read most of the Awesome Holidays and flipped through what I didn’t read. And I read all of the titles in Even More Awesome and read a few full pieces but mostly not.  TW and I talked about how I’ve never tried to peel an orange in one piece (I wonder why) – but I have peeled an orange in one piece, with my favorite Girl Scout pocket Knife and that was AWESOME!

These are fun books. I wouldn’t mind owning them – being able to pluck one off of the shelf and find an awesome thought, feeling, experience to make me smile, and then put the book back in its place.

*Sidenote 1* My favorite fun site right now is Fuck Your Noguchi Coffee Table – you must go look.

*Sidenote 2* It was hard to read the awesome because I kept thinking of Awesome, Julie’s darn cat.  Sheesh.

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Feynman

1 Comment / 2012, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

I was not cut out for Physics. I just wasn’t. And digging into the topic in graphic novel format and reading about an interesting guy like Feynman didn’t change that. Elly picked it up and said – this is science-y. Yes, yes it is. I’m sure there are teens who will like this book. I don’t know quite who they might be but I’m very sure they are out there.

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Ghetto Cowboy

2012, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

This has been an awesome year for middle grade lit on audio. First, there was A Monster Calls, which I will never ever forget. Now, I’ve got Ghetto Cowboy and I’m almost glad Michelle has decided to move to Philadelphia because how cool is Philly with their Urban Cowboys and their horses? Because while this was fiction, Philly really does have urban cowboys and they really do  help keep poor black kids off of the streets by getting them involved with horses.   Learn a bit about Philadelphia’s urban riding program and then read/listen to Ghetto Cowboy. You won’t regret it – until the story ends and you want more.

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