Library Challenge 2009 Yay, my first challenge since I started my blog all those hours ago! J. Kaye is hosting the 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge, and I’m locking myself in at 25 books.

(I first thought that I wouldn’t be able to do this challenge without considerable effort, as the main library is two buses away and every other one is practically inaccessible. But then I remembered I actually work at a library and that it’d be no problem. Heh. This sort of thing is why I named my blog Birdbrain(ed).)

A list of books I check out will be below (starting January 2009):
1. Crusader – Edward Bloor
2. House of Many Ways – Diana Wynne Jones
3. The Black Cauldron – Lloyd Alexander
4. The Alchemyst – Michael Scott
5. Nation – Terry Pratchett
6. The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
7. The Children of Green Knowe – L.M. Boston
8. The Treasure of Green Knowe – L.M. Boston
9. The Sea of Monsters – Rick Riordan
10. The Titan’s Curse – Rick Riordan
11. The Battle of the Labyrinth – Rick Riordan
12. Beyond the Western Sea #1: The Escape From Home – Avi
13. The House of Windjammer – V.A. Richardson
14. Earthseed – Pamela Sargent
15. Curse of the Bane (The Last Apprentice #2) – Joseph Delaney
16. The Anybodies – N.E. Bode
17. My Side of the Mountain – Jean Craighead George
18. The Other Side of the Mountain – Jean Craighead George
19. Frightful’s Mountain – Jean Craighead George
20. Gone – Michael Grant
21. Well Witched – Frances Hardinge
22. Eon: Dragoneye Reborn (Eon #1) – Alison Goodman
23. Fly By Night – Frances Hardinge
24. The Demon’s Lexicon – Sarah Rees Brennan
25. The Last Days – Scott Westerfeld

Yay! Challenge is complete as of June 11, 2009!

Nov 102008
 

time_feasting_cover The Time of Feasting by Mick Farren
Publication: Tor Books (1996) / ISBN 0812538749
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
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Victor Renquist is an extremely old vampire Master living in New York City with his colony, and things are about to get sticky. The Feasting is upon them, and soon their bloodlust will be uncontrollable. Renquist must deal with rebellious colony members, a drunkard ex-priest determined to be the next Van Helsing, suspicious cops, and jealous lovers, all while trying to control primal urges that threaten to expose the colony to the outside world. Can he do it, or will the colony be snuffed out?

If The Time of Feasting was a movie, it’d be somewhere in the B range. Luckily, I happen to love B movies, so I had a lot of fun reading this. There’s a ton of interesting little details and action stuffed into it, so it moves fast and kept my interest ’til the end. The characters were entertaining (especially the creepy incestuous sisters, one tall and bald and the other like a demonic Shirley Temple), and the history of the nosferatu was interesting and different from other vampire books that I’ve read. Okay, I haven’t read a lot of them but certain details threw me for a loop. (Gotta avoid those spoilers!) Besides the vampires, there’s voodoo priests, fabulous descriptions of the mid-1990′s social scene,and, of course, NYC. I love NYC. I’ve never been, but I love the whole idea of it.

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