Review: Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley

 Posted by Anastasia on September 30, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 302009
 

Thank You For Smoking newThank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley
Publication: Random House Trade Paperbacks; 4th edition (February 14, 2006), Paperback, 288 pages / ISBN 0812976525
Genre: Satire
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: August 2009

Thank You For Smoking feels like a very 90′s book. Not just because it’s set in the 90′s, but just because the uber-yuppie seems like such a 80′s/90′s cliche. It’s like how American Psycho was full of uber-yuppies (and, er, death)– that whole money-money-money and screw everyone else mentality. Some books, though they may have been written seventy years ago, still seem very fresh and new, where as some other books, er, don’t. Unfortunately, Thank You For Smoking felt more like the latter kind of book.

Summary from Indiebound:

Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies-in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of the original Puff Daddy?

Anyway, since it’s a parody of all those uber-yuppie things, Thank You For Smoking is by turns hilarious and horrifying. It’s hilarious because the whole thing is just over the top, and it’s horrifying because there are no doubt some people who did (or still do) think like the uber-yuppies in TYFS think. By the end I was tired from laughing but I was also somewhat shocked at how horrible people can be.

Satires don’t necessarily mean relatable characters, and unfortunately that holds true here. I was really interested in seeing how Nick was going to pull off his plot and I did root for him to win, but I didn’t like him as a person. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to like him, though– it’s really hard to like uber-yuppies because they’re so slimy even when they’re trying to do good things.

I did enjoy reading Thank You For Smoking! But it feels so dated that it was hard to get into completely, and I’m not sure I would have finished it if I hadn’t already seen the movie and wanted to see how it differed from the book. But it was funny, and an interesting look at mid-90′s yuppies (and how people thought of them), and I think some of the morality issues are valid even today. If you liked the movie, you’ll probably like the book!

Get your own copy from Amazon or your favorite indie bookstore.

Other reviews: NickAnny Creations | Knowledge is Cool | The Post College Years

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 Satire

Books Trailer Tuesday: "Your Fate Hurtles Down At You"

 Posted by Anastasia on September 29, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 292009
 

Book Trailer Tues Book Trailer Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by me, Anastasia. It’s very simple to play along: find a particularly awesome book trailer, embed it in a post, then proceed to coo all over it. Or, y’know, talk about whatever you want to talk about. Why did this book trailer catch your eye? Why do you want to share it with people? Did it make you want to read the book? Why was it effective (or not)?

This week’s featured trailer is actually for a short story, called “Your Fate Hurtles Down At You” by Jim Shepard. It’s one of the stories in Electric Literature #1 and it looks really good. Here’s the trailer:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUClJFjFEgk]

I love how the narration is actual bits from the story. I love the animation (by Jonathan Ashley), the music (by Nick DeWitt), and the narrator (though he had a bit of a rocky start). Watching this video actually makes me feel like I’m high on a snowy mountaintop, and I think that’s a fantastic accomplishment.

And since I actually have some extra dough for once? Yeah, totally buying the paper version. I love the cover, what can I say? (There’s electronic versions, too!)

What book trailer caught your eye this Tuesday?

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 Book Trailer Tuesday, Memes

Review: Coot Club by Arthur Ransome

 Posted by Anastasia on September 29, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 292009
 

Coot ClubCoot Club (Swallows & Amazons #5) by Arthur Ransome
Publication: David R. Godine Publisher, Paperback, 352 pages / ISBN 9780879237875
Genre: Fiction, Children’s
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: September 2009

Series: Books #1-4

I know! I didn’t know what a coot was, either. It sounded vaguely dirty, and possibly hilarious in the same way that Titty’s name was hilarious in the first book. But actually it’s a kind of bird, sort of in the duck area I guess? Don’t be fooled, though– Coot Club is less about coots and more about the kids who are members of it. The D’s (Dorothea and Dick, first showed up in Winter Holiday, remember?) are in it as well, and really nifty older lady who I adore.

Coot Club is basically in two viewpoints: the D’s, who are on holiday and trying to learn to sail, and Tom, who’s on the run from some snobs after surreptitiously moving their boat one night in order to save some coot eggs (the snobs were blocking the nest and refused to move). Unfortunately, the D’s have no-one to teach them, and Tom is on the run from the snobs after they post wanted posters regarding his escapades against them. Luckily, the D’s and Tom meet and end up helping each other out: Tom agrees to go along with the D’s on their boat and teach them to sail, and as a bonus he gets away from the snobs long enough for them to hopefully cool down (or leave the Broads).

This is a coot, btw.

This is a coot, btw.

The story is somehow both relaxing and terribly exciting. Tom is chased all throughout The Norfolk Broads by the snobs (which he calls the Hullabaloos), and while they give the snobs the slip several times, it’s obvious that they’ll catch up sooner or later. So while the D’s are trying to figure out which side is starboard and which is port, and while they cruise up and down the river and go through locks and under bridges and even when they crash on a sandbank, there’s a very tense feeling running throughout the story. But the descriptions of the river and the animals and birds are so lovely that I couldn’t help feeling relaxed and dreamy, as well. It’s a very divided book!

I liked Tom, the other members of the Coot Club (like the twins nicknamed Port and Starboard), and Mrs Barrable, the older lady who takes in the D’s for a few weeks. I was kind of wishing the Coot Club would come back in another book, but I’m pretty sure they don’t. At any rate, they’re a lovely alternative to the Swallows and Amazons, since I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to read a book with just the D’s in it. They’re nice, but too city-bound and too dreamy without anyone else to balance them out.

Anyway, the ending is most satisfying, and I don’t want to give you any hints because it’s so delicious that I think you’ll appreciate it better if you know nothing about it. So, read the book, read the ending, then come back and tell me: did you squeal in happiness like I did?

Get your own copy from Amazon or your favorite indie bookstore.

Other reviews: Cerebrate’s Contemplations

Photo from Wikipedia.

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 4/5, Fiction, Reviews, YA

Review: Going Solo by Roald Dahl

 Posted by Anastasia on September 28, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 282009
 

Going SoloGoing Solo by Roald Dahl
Publication: Puffin (January 22, 2009), Paperback, 224 pages / ISBN 0142413836
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: September 2009

I LOVE this book. I already love memoirs told by quirky narrators that travel around the world, and I love Roald Dahl’s kids books like woah, so this was a perfect book for me to read!

Summary from Amazon:

Going Solo is the action-packed tale of Roald Dahl’s exploits as a World War II pilot. Learn all about his encounters with the enemy, his worldwide travels, the life-threatening injuries he sustained in a plane accident, and the rest of his sometimes bizarre, often unnerving, and always colorful adventures.

I only knew a little bit about Roald Dahl before I read this book, mainly some from video clips I found online about where he wrote his books and how he helped invent a cerebral shunt. I had no idea that he had been a pilot for the RAF or that he spent time overseas!

Funny things happen in Going Solo, and some sad things as well (it does partly take place during a war, after all). Mr. Dahl tells it all with his trademark wit and humor, but with a lot of love as well. He may make fun of “empire-builders” (expats who have spent so much time in foreign lands they’ve gone completely insane) but he has a fondness for them as well, and that comes through in his writing. And when he wrote about his fellow pilot and friend, who ended up being killed later on in the war? Yeah, I teared up.

I liked how the story was interspersed with photos and bits of letters Mr. Dahl wrote to his mother, who was living back in England at the time. The letters are sweet, and though the pictures aren’t really good quality (I think it might have something to do with being printed directly onto the paper, instead of on higher quality photo paper) it’s nice seeing how Mr. Dahl and his friends looked back then. Most of the pictures were actually taken by Mr. Dahl himself, who toted around a camera practically the entire time he was in the war.

The only complaint I have about Going Solo is that it’s too darn short. I wish he had written a great big honking tome about everything he did instead of just two little ones about the first 30 or so years of his life. He seems like such a nifty person in his memoirs, and I wish he had written more. I did get a copy of Boy, the first part to his memoirs, so I can read that, and then there’s My Year, written the year before he died, but I don’t think there’s anything else. And biographies aren’t the same. Sigh.

If you like Roald Dahl, his books, or even just WWII memoirs or travel narratives, you’ll love this book. It’s short, but it’s hilarious and touching and exciting, and it’s really worth reading.

Other reviews: Aircrew Book Review | Blog A Book | The World is Quiet Here

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 5/5, Memoir, Non-fiction, Reviews, Travel

Review: The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones

 Posted by Anastasia on September 27, 2009  5 Responses »
Sep 272009
 

UninvitedThe Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones
Publication: Candlewick (May 12, 2009), Hardcover, 368 pages / ISBN 0763639842
Genre: Thriller, YA/Teen
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: R.I.P. IV (#2)
Read: September 2009

Note: I do talk about some potentially spoiler-ish things in this review, but I’ve tried to keep it to just stuff that happens in the first half of the book. If you’re really sensitive to spoilers, read the book first and then read my review.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this book. I liked it, but at the same time I’m not really feeling all that positive about it. I’m also not entirely sure it actually is a YA/teen book, since all the characters are in their 20s– but that’s just a side issue.

Summary from Fantastic Fiction:

Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she’s glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north. The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she’s shocked to find someone already living there – Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition. But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want? Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie – a mysterious character in its own right.

The Uninvited is creepy to the max, and it makes me feel all yucky inside, like how I feel after reading a true crime novel or after watching one of those serial killer profile shows on TruTV. It’s very well-written, and the story is intense, but it made me feel a little gross.

There’s some really big things in The Uninvited, like stalking, sexual harassment, and incest (kinda), but none of it never fully matures (I’m sure if they had it’d have been classified as an adult novel for sure), but just having the hints and beginnings of something happening because of those things is enough to give me the yucks. I’m sure if it was handled like a “true events fictionalized” sort of book I would have felt differently about it, more matter-of-fact maybe, but since it was handled like a thriller I was just disturbed.

The biggest thing that disturbed me is that Cramer, the third narrator with Mimi and Jay, spends much of his time stalking Mimi. I mean seriously stalking, like going through her stuff, messing up her computer so she’d have to come meet him in the computer store where he works, taking pictures of her without her knowing, watching her through her windows from a tree. None of the incest or sexual harassment stuff escalates into anything big, but the stalking does. It’s creepy and considering how nuts Cramer’s mom is, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the book had ended with everyone dead and the town in flames. It doesn’t end that way, and even though Cramer never escalates to rapist-murderer-psycho it was very much a possibility and it kept me on edge for most of the book.

I think the worst thing (or the best thing, depending) was how I wasn’t even sure if Cramer was crazy or not until he breaks in Mimi’s house for the first time. The slow build up to the reveal that, yeah, he and his mom are totally unhinged was really done well, and the rest of the reveals (ones not just involving Cramer) are done just as well.

I’m not entirely sure I like the ending, however. There were clues on how it was going to end spread throughout the book in little italicized snippets, but when it actually happened I was kind of disappointed. I suppose because I was expecting it to end in mass murder, and so was prepared for something horrible like that. It did end in a really, well, thrilling scene, but after that scene it just went flat. And even though I thought the characters were good in their roles, they never fully crossed the line into real-people territory. They kept reading like characters (or actors playing characters, even), and while that thankfully gave me some distance from the yuck I can help but think that the book would have been even better if Mimi and Jay had seemed more like real people.

Though I don’t normally read thrillers, and though the book gave me an uneasy feeling the entire time I was reading it, I do think it’s a good read and a really good book for reading in the dark. It actually kind of reads like a better 1990′s slasher flick (without any slashing), so if you’re into that you’ll probably like this book.

Oh, and, yeah, don’t be fooled– Tim Wynne-Jones isn’t related to Diana Wynne Jones, though he does write some YA fantasy books, apparently.

Get your own copy from Amazon or your favorite indie bookstore.

Other reviews: Guys Lit Wire | Katie’s Bookshelf | The Shelf Elf

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 4/5, Fiction, Reviews, Teen, Thriller

APFOL: Sept 20-26

 Posted by Anastasia on September 26, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 262009
 

Interesting posts and other things that have caught my eye this week. It isn’t actually everything, since I didn’t want to kill myself copy-pasting, so for the entire link collection check out my Delicious page.

And now, I present to you, my readers: Awesome Post Full of Links #4: September 20-26!

Books in General

Authors & Publishers

(Book) Blogging

Nifty New Blog(ger)s!

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 Link Posts, Misc

Six Degrees of Exploration! (signup & explanation)

 Posted by Anastasia on September 26, 2009  No Responses »
Sep 262009
 

6degrees-bird
If you spend a lot of time on the internet, sooner or later you’ll probably run into Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It’s basically a game seeing if you can link any film actor to Kevin Bacon within six steps or less; it’s totally hilarious and a very handy party game.

This challenge is inspired from SDOKBacon and the recommended reading lists found somewhere in most books. You know, the ones that are like “if you like this book check out these similar books we publish.” I’ve never really paid too much attention to them until yesterday, when I was flipping through We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea. I thought, “Here’s a book I really love, and here’s a list of books that are kinda similar to it. Wonder if I’ll love those books, too?”

So: SDOKBacon + We Also Publish These lists = Six Degrees of Exploration!

It’s a little involved, but don’t be scared. Basically, it works like this:

Step 1: Pick a book. This’ll be your starter, so maybe pick one you love. If you’re feeling adventurous, pick a book at random. (Make sure it has a WAPT list in it, though.)

Step 2: Check out the WAPT list. Find a title that looks interesting.

Step 3: Read the book. If you like it, move on to Step 4. If you don’t like it, go back to the previous book and pick another title.

Step 4: Check out the WAPT list for the second book. Pick a title that looks interesting. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you’ve read 8 books total.

Step 5: Compare your starter book and your final book. How do they match up? Are they alike? Totally different? What was your journey like as a whole?

Step 6: Come back here and leave a link with your final post. Check out other people’s posts. Then do it all again if you want! Just finish some time before December 31, 2010. Actually, just finish whenever you want. :D

It doesn’t have to be all the same publisher. I know older books (and some newer ones, even) were sold by more than one publisher (or at least different imprints), and it’d be interesting to see how many different publishers you can get on one line. The only niggles I can see is if one of the books you choose don’t have a WAPT list, but in that case try checking the back cover for “if you like [whatever] you’ll probably like this book” or even the blurbs for potential authors/books.

The goal is to have fun, discover new books, and see where the titles take you. It’s more like a game than a challenge, which is partly why it lasts so long forever. I want this to be fun and interesting and not stressful at all– that why it’s called Six Degrees of Exploration. Have fun!

I’m super into this, so I’ll probably go wild and do lots of stuff. Don’t feel that you have to follow me into my insanity, but I do hope you’ll check back and see what happens! I’m a secret stats junkie, and I love seeing how things are connected. And I kinda hope that there are at least a few other people out there who are interested in doing this with me, too? My post is here, for anyone interested.

You can sign up for the challenge using this Mr. Linky here. Please link to your post about the challenge, not just your main blog! (Thanks!)

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