Still on the shelf October 2012

Oh, books.  I'm drooling over you, but I'm trying to be an adult here and do responsible things on the weekend instead of drowning in you.  Soon the last applications will be completed and vacations will be had, and books will be read.  Oh, yes, they will.

• Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore:  This author has turned out two excellent books that take place in the same world.  The books were very different.  I am looking forward to a third excellent book that is also very different.
• Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare: Leave me alone.  : ) The dialogue is fun, and these characters have had less time to become tiresome.  It's a weird paranormal/steampunk vibe with very polite speech, and I liked the first one, possibly because I am a sucker for demon-drug-addicted-soulful-doomed-guys in books.
• City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare: Well, Simon is still pretty much awesome.  I'm really in it for him at this point, if you must know.  Certain other folks need to be kicked in the head until they stop acting like idiots.  Well, they needed kicking in the last book.  Now they need way more help than a swift kick could provide . . .  I must admit a sort of morbid curiosity about the upcoming movie adaptation for the first book.  I suspect it won't be nearly as much fun as the book unless they get some really snazzy actors and actresses. 
• The Fox Woman and Fudoki by Kij Johnson: Even the complaints on Amazon are promising. Something tells me I will adore these, possibly as much as the Tales of the Otori. I hope to find out this winter.
• Goliath by Scott Westerfeld: Will they stop the war?  Will he ever figure out why the perspicacious creature keeps saying Mr. Sharpe so sarcastically?  Will Alec ever get to be emperor and thus never be able to be in a romance with our other main character?  I don't know, but I will find out and then not spoil it for you.
• A Calculus of Angels by J. Gregory Keyes: We move to Russia, which didn't actually get destroyed in the first book, but the fallout from said book is pretty fierce even there.  That's all the further I've gotten, but I am looking forward to a day taking up a chair at Panera by the fireplace and finding out what on earth happens next in this fantasy/alternate history weirdstravaganza.
• A bunch of tween books: I don't know which ones yet, but I figure I ought to fill up the tank before I tackle my just-graduated-from-sixth-grade narrator for National Novel Writing month, which I can probably participate in since I have not destroyed any of my fingers in the last couple of months (fingers crossed).  I'm still not 100% there with the recovery from the August of 2011 smashing, but I'm told the nerves will eventually grow back right as rain.  Got any suggestions?  (For books, not for finger remedies.)  Finding contemporary-ish 11-13 protagonists in non-genre fiction isn't easy.  Good thing I like to read a lot. : )

So what's on your slate coming up?  Any books you've been saving to savor when you have more time?

New Miles book out before my birthday: enough said

.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Scheduled for November 6, 2012)

.

Wise Man's Fear

Should I start rereading name now in case the book comes out early (even though I'm pretty sure this one is a hard lay-down date and not a soft one)?  I don't want to finish too early and then have to wait, but if I wait too long, I'll still be reading Name of the Wind while Wise Man's Fear looks at me mournfully from the To Read Shelf.  Oh, the agony!

Have you started rereading yet?

To all the "I'm not a writer"s out there

There's a book that just came out with a rather intriguing title.  I liked the first chapter enough that I'm definitely going to have to track it down.  I mean, how can you resist the siren song of Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime?  I read a preview chapter in a magazine, and, though I still don't know where the Suicidal Mime is going to come into play, I did like the rather bizarre premise and the rather awkwardly sad narrator.  I hope he gets a good ending.

A quote I enjoyed from the first chapter.

"All you have to do is write down the things that happened and how you felt exactly the way you experienced it.  As long as you try your very best, the honest words of someone who doesn't usually write can inspire the heart and the appetite so much more than works that rely on technical mastery."

Do you agree?  

Any L'Engle readers out there?

I'm thinking of picking a month to go on a Madeleine L'Engle binge.  She wrote a lot of books I had no interest in as a kid, even if they did share characters with books I did read and love.  I figure I should try to go back and check out the ones I skipped the first, second, and third times around.

I was looking at one of her books the other day, and I noticed that she was my my grandmother's contemporary.  This was a strange realization, that this vibrant, smart, thoughtful, creative woman so different from my grandmother lived through the same times she did.  There were certainly socioeconomic differences, but I don't think that's really the main thing that affected the outcome of their lives.

Anyway, it just made me think.

Are there any L'Engle books for adults that you recommend to top my list?

Terry Pratchett strikes again!

Yes, my lovelies, it's true!  There's a new Discworld novel out by Terry Pratchett.  What will happen when Terry Pratchett takes on the sports novel genre?  God (and fast readers with time on their hands) only knows, especially since the book is set at good old Unseen U.  I can't wait to find out how the Librarian contributes to the team.  I just can't wait, in general.


Anybody read it yet?  Any non-spoilerific comments?

A Few Books that Look Interesting

There are always a lot of books that I see that catch my attention that I'm too poor to buy but that I want to check out further.  Here are a few recent ones.

• Retail Hell. I live it, and I enjoy reading a good rant about it.  This book will definitely fall under that rant category.  After reading the introduction, which is full of profanity and has a more dishy tone, I know I won't like it nearly as much as Pretending You Care: the Retail Employee Handbook by Norm Feuti.  I wonder if that's because Norm's complaints are cathartic and useful (or would be if any people in management would read the book), as shown by the fact that his book is in the business section rather than the humor section.

• Shelf Discovery.  For those of us who still read and re-read and love young adult novels of yore. It's a blast to read short essays written by people who love books and remember what it was like to love them back when they were members of the target audience.  I like reading people who are excited and passionate about something, and I love books, so this is a fun collection even if I've only read about half of the books mentioned.

 

• The Unlikely Disciple.  Ivy League college journalism student goes undercover at extremely conservative Christian University (as a study abroad credit).  But first, he has to figure out how to stop swearing . . .  it's kind of an intriguing idea, and it sounds like a great read for people who aren't sure that Christians are people too as well as for Christians who sometimes wonder what they look like to those on the "outside."

 

• Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs onto Facebook.  I am a casual Facebook user, and I get a huge kick out of this book. I can't imagine how much funnier it would be to alert major who is a hard-core Facebook user.  I have skimmed the book thus far and direct your attention to Wuthering Heights, Jane Austen, Dracula, and Oscar Wilde.  And everyone else. If you love literature or know someone who majored in it in college, this is a book you should share.  (What is with so much great literary criticism stuff coming out all at once?  It's an embarrassment of riches!) 

Have you read any of these?  Any comments?  Have you seen anything recently that you wish you had a couple days off to read right now?