2010 March » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Introducing the Birdbrain(ed) Book Boxes!

Posted by Anastasia on March 9, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 092010

Remember this post? And the boxes full of books I’m selling? Well! I’ve got the first set of boxes ready, and here’s what I’ve got available this month:

YA Box #1 $6
Books included:
So Below: Key to the City by Matt Whyman
The Great Mom Swap by Betsy Haynes (a favorite from my childhood)
Spy Girls #4: Spy Girls Are Forever by ?
Nothing But the Truth by Avi (in somewhat worse condition than the others)
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists Club by Bertrand R. Brinley
The Girl Who Knew Tomorrow by Zoa Sherburne (one of the first books I ever reviewed on my blog)
The Anybodies by N.E. Bode (a really awesome book, btw)
Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee
3 Animorphs books
The Vanishing Chip by Mark Delaney (hilariously outdated YA techno-mystery)
Where I’d Like to Be by Frances O’Roark Dowell (obviously in worse condition than the other books– check out the top of the spine)

Mystery Box #1 $6.50
Books included:
One for the Money by D.B. Borton
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Murder 101 by Maggie Barbieri
Scales of Justice by Ngaio Marsh (with creepy cover!)
Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh
You’ve Got Murder by Donna Andrews
Dying in Style by Elaine Viets
The Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid
Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green (urban fantasy with detective noir leanings!)
The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (probably my favorite Christie book EVER– I have two other copies besides this one)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Ruby Raven by Michael Dahl

Mystery Box #2 $4.50
Books included:
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
The Waterworks by E.L. Doctorow
The Cat Who Turned On & Off by Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare by Lilian Jackson Braun
Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie (although I suppose this could be considered more a thriller)
Mostly Murder by Sidney Smith (a non-fiction account of a forensic pathologist in the early 20th century. Very interesting, actually. He travels all over!)
Nancy Drew collection (3 in 1)
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon (this one I DO know has a broken spine)

Chick Lit Box $3
Books included:
Watermelon by Marian Keyes
Jemima J by Jane Green
Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
Sushi For Beginners by Marian Keyes
The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes
Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes

Meg Cabot Box $2
Books included:
the first three Princess Diaries books
All-American Girl

Harlequin Romance Box $1.50
Books included:
Miranda’s Revenge by Ruth Wind
Not on His Watch by Cassie Miles
The Duchess & Her Bodyguard by Mollie Molay
Killer Passion by Sheri WhiteFeather
The CEO Takes a Wife by Maxine Sullivan

I haven’t entirely figured out the shipping yet, so it’s basically $5 a box with Media Mail Rate. If the difference between that and the actual price is humongous, I’ll refund some of your money, m’kay?

Anyway, I’ve run out of boxes now so this is it for March. When these are gone there won’t be any more boxes until April, so get ‘em quick if you want ‘em!

Review: The Third Magic by Welwyn Wilton Katz

Posted by Anastasia on March 8, 2010 4 Responses »

Mar 082010

23. The Third Magic by Welwyn Wilton Katz
Publication: Douglas & Mcintyre Ltd; 1St Edition edition (June 1988), Hardback, 204pp / ISBN 0888990685
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating:
Read: January 24-30, 2010
Source: PBS
Summary from Indiebound:

Fifteen-year-old Morgan Lefevre is mistaken for one of her ancestors while visiting Tintagel, King Arthur’s birthplace in England. In this vivid and innovative interpretation of the King Arthur legend, she is summoned through time to the alien world of Nwm. With her only companion, the boy Arduu, she is caught between the opposing cruelties of the two Magics, the Circle, and the Line, who have been fighting one another over the centuries and across many worlds.
When Morgan and Arduu gain possession of an ancient sword of the Third Magic, Earth itself is drawn into the struggle. Times and worlds merge as Morgan is brought face to face with her own destiny.

Review

I’ve put off reviewing this for so long mostly because I’m not sure what to say. I normally really like Arthurian stories, even if they’re weird, but this one is just a little beyond me.

It’s an interesting little book, for sure. I like the idea of dual worlds, and I like nearly every story with twins, and I like it when characters go beyond the set boundaries of their society. And I do like how it ties into Arthurian legend, especially at the end. But it just kind of feels incomplete.

If this was being written today I’m sure the publishers would have stretched it out into a trilogy, and I’m almost certain that would have been a very good idea. There’s so much new stuff in The Third Magic, with a new world and magic as well as the Arthurian stuff that I really think the world-building needed to be more. I got the basics, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Plus I really liked Arddu and would have loved more of him as well. And I think Morgan got shafted– much of her screen time was when she was having visions (which were kinds described like LSD trips) or when she was panicking. She never really got to be awesome until the end, and even then it wasn’t that awesome.

So basically I think I want The Third Magic to either be longer or less trippy. Diana Wynne Jones can do short books set in alternative magic worlds and not leave me feeling that something was left out– so maybe I just want this to be a DWJ book. I don’t know! I liked it, but at the end I just felt kind of bereft. Bah.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: Have you reviewed this book? Let me know and I’ll link to it from this post!

TSS (March 6): Shelf purging

Posted by Anastasia on March 7, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 072010

Okay, so if you haven’t heard already I’m planning to travel around the world after I graduate. It’s not going to be a whirlwind tour, and in fact it’ll probably take a couple of years! I’m planning to settle down in various places as well, if I can get a decent enough job (and a work visa, of course). One of the places I want to live is New Zealand, which means I’ll have to ship my stuff over seas. Which means mucho money spent on postage. Which means I need to jettison most of my stuff. And by “stuff” I mean mostly books.

According to my LibraryThing account I’ve got somewhere around 880 books. No WAY am I moving that many books across the ocean, especially since I haven’t read around half of them! So I have a plan. It’s in two parts, because I’m awesome like that.

Part One: Mount TBR

Like I said, I haven’t read a lot of the books that are in my collection. According to my LibraryThing account, it’s somewhere around 340 as of yesterday afternoon. Now, if I read 25 books a month I can just make it to 300 books by the time I leave next March (which it when I plan to). I might be able to swing more during the summer, and if I also get rid of the books I’ll never read (because you know there are), I might just be able to conquer Mount TBR by the time I leave. That would be fantastic!

To do that I have to a) stop taking in books and b) make the majority of my reading from my shelves. Now, I have a hard time with that first letter, because I work in a freakin’ library and it’s just hard, okay. But I have stopped buying books and I’m only taking in a few new ones from BookMooch and whatnot. Less than 5 a month, I’d say. It’s not that bad, really. The second letter is easier because I’ll just make sure to force myself to scan my shelves for a book instead of reading that great library book I found last week (Trailing the Giant Panda, looks extremely interesting).
Continue reading »

Review: Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

Posted by Anastasia on March 5, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 052010

39. Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
Publication: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (October 21, 2008), Audiobook, ~6.5hrs / ISBN 0061672904
Genre: Horror
Rating:
Read: ?-February 24, 2010
Source: Borrowed
Challenges: GLBT Challenge #2
Summary from Amazon:

This bone-chilling novel, in which a medieval devil speaks directly to the reader, claims to be a never-before-published demonic memoir penned in the year 1438. The sole copy was, so the story goes, created by the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg himself. But this historic piece of writing immediately vanished without a trace.

Until now…

A demon known as Jakabok has embedded his very self inside each word of this meticulously printed tale of autobiographical terror. The reader is taunted and teased by his pleas for release from the confines of the very ink and paper that provide the vehicle for his life story. Little do they know, the depths of horror they hold in their hands. Reader beware, indeed, as Jakabok (aka Mister B.) escorts you on an unforgettable journey into the ultimate origins of good and evil.

Review

I’m not sure how I got this audiobook pushed on me, since I’m not a huge Clive Barker fan and am only vaguely familiar with his works (although I did watch all the Hellraiser movies one October). I hadn’t read any of his books before, though I knew about his Abarat series, which looks really good, by the way. But anyway, it was indeed pushed upon me, and, uh, yeah. I liked it!

I was kind of surprised at how much I liked it, actually. Probably a lot of it was because of Doug Bradley’s reading, because he is fantastic. I could listen to him reading books to me all day. Oh yes. (And, yeah, he was Pinhead in the Hellraiser movies.)

The actual story is quite interesting, because it involves books and demons and neat stuff like that. It’s also quite gory, and at least twice it got so bad I had to take my earphones out and wait for it to go by. Think the first Hellraiser movie in terms of gore. If you can’t handle that movie, you probably won’t be able to handle the book (unless you skip forward like I did).

Here’s the thing. The book is very meta. A lot of things Jakabok talks about are in relation to the PHYSICAL book he’s in, that you’re supposed to be holding in your hands. But, uh, I was listening to the audiobook! So I can’t, y’know, burn the book. Because it’s in my iPod. And so a lot of the technique used in the paper book is lost in translation to audio.

Does it detract from the story? Maybe a little. It’s much less effective to have a demon begging you to burn his book when there is no book. On the other hand, I was still sufficiently creeped out when Jakabok spoke of being right behind me. I mean, I was so creeped out I did, in fact, actually turn around and check. So there’s that.

Overall, I would recommend Mister B. Gone for anyone who likes horror and metafiction, and I’d recommend the audiobook to anyone who likes having an excellent narrator along with the narrative. I really enjoyed it, and I’ll for sure check out Mr Barker’s other writings.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: The BookBanter Blog | No Room in Hell | Ted’s Thoughts

Thursday Tea (March 4): The Geographer's Library

Posted by Anastasia on March 4, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 042010

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the answers to these questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

The book: Time for a story! I leave so early in the morning that it’s still pretty dark out, and it’s necessary to have lights on inside the house. As I was getting ready to go out the door I realized that I hadn’t picked a new book out to read. The lights were off by then, so I had to pick a book off my shelf blind– and I picked The Geographer’s Library.

It was a really good choice, actually, because I’ve had it on my shelves since at least October 2009 and I really needed to read it. It had been so long since I first bought it that I completely forgot what it was about, just that someone told me it was good. In case you don’t know what it’s about, either, here’s a summary from Amazon:

When a twelfth-century Sicilian cat burglar snatches a sack of artifacts from the king’s geographer’s library, the tools and talismans of transmutation-and eternal life-are soon scattered all over the world. Nine hundred years later, a young Connecticut reporter finds evidence that someone is collecting them again. In the process of investigating the suspicious death of a local professor, Paul Tomm finds the dead man’s heavily fortified office stuffed with books on alchemy. The Geographer’s Library entwines his contemporary reporting with a chain of ancient stories-within-the-story, tracking the last time each of the geographer’s tools changed hands-some bought, some stolen, some killed for.

I’m about 25 pages in and so far it’s good. Paul’s situation reminds me a lot of Billy from The Broken Teaglass‘s situation, actually, and kind of what I’m going through myself (or about to go through). The reviews on Amazon don’t make me feel good about the rest of the book, though. I guess we’ll see what happens?

The tea: Just your standard Earl Grey. It’s alright. Not as exciting as I normally like my teas, but not bad.

Do they go together? Sure! The so-so Earl Grey tea kind of reminds me a bit of Paul’s so-so life. I haven’t gotten to the part where the mystery starts, but I’m assuming that Paul’s life eventually becomes a lot more exciting than my tea is.

What are you drinking/reading this Thursday?

Review: Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews

Posted by Anastasia on March 3, 2010 4 Responses »

Mar 032010

38. Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews
Publication: Minotaur Books; X edition (January 15, 2000), Paperback, 311pp / ISBN 0312970633
Genre: Mystery
Rating:
Read: February 22-24, 2010
Source: PBS
Summary from Amazon:

So far Meg Langslow’s summer is not going swimmingly. Down in her small Virginia hometown, she’s maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones–each of whom has dumped the planning in her capable hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony, while another wants live peacocks on the law. Only help from the town’s drop-dead gorgeous hunk, disappointingly rumored to be gay, keeps Meg afloat in a sea of dotty relatives and outrageous neighbors.

And, in whirl of summer parties and picnics, Southern hospitality is strained to the limit by an offensive newcomer who hints at skeletons in the guests’ closets. But it seems this lady has offended one too many when she’s found dead in suspicious circumstances, followed by a string of accidents–some fatal. Soon, level-headed Meg’s to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer–before the next catered event is her own funeral…

Review

So it turns out I had another Donna Andrews book and hadn’t realized it until after I reorganized my shelves. Ha! And while I was kind of expecting Murder with Peacocks to be like You’ve Got Murder, in writing style if nothing else, I was not expecting to like Murder With Peacocks even more than I liked You’ve Got Murder!

Murder With Peacocks is charming, but not charming in that annoying way like, I don’t know. Precious Moments. It’s not Precious Moments charming, it’s Southern family does hilarious things while solving a mystery charming.

I really loved the characters! I liked Meg, who tolerates her family with humor and grace even when they’re driving her insane. She’s also curious about things, something she probably picked up from her Sherlock Holmes-wannabe dad (who is also charmingly funny). I liked how Meg manages to fend off her mother’s matchmaking without going nuclear and without resorting to crazy lying games of the kind you find in chick lit books sometimes. And I liked how she’s unconventional without being over-the-top.

Her family is great, too. They’ve got that Southern kookiness that was such a hit in stuff like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and so on. Except maybe less annoying. Meg’s family is hilarious and I can’t wait to read more about them in the next book.

The mystery was pretty good, too. It was sort of interwoven with the non-mystery bits in a way that made the whole thing really great, truly enjoyable to read. I’m so glad I kept on reading Donna Andrews books, because I really loved this one!

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound

Other reviews: Babbling Book Reviews | Tiny Little Reading Room | The Mystery Reader

Review: You've Got Murder by Donna Andrews

Posted by Anastasia on March 2, 2010 No Responses »

Mar 022010

36. You’ve Got Murder by Donna Andrews
Publication: Berkley; First Thus edition (April 1, 2003), Paperback, 304pp / ISBN 0425189457
Genre: Mystery
Rating:
Read: February 21, 2010
Source: PBS
Summary from Amazon:

Turing Hopper is an Artificial Intelligence Personality, a mainframe computer with a mind like Miss Marple. And when her creator, Zack, begins missing work, the sentient Turing senses foul play…

Review

Continuing on my adventures into cozy mysteries with something weird in them, we’ve come to You’ve Got Murder, where the amateur detective is an A.I.! You may think that having a computer program solve mysteries is a bit of a cheat, since, uh, computer programs are basically omnipresent/omniscient/etc, but stick in a personality and that computer program becomes much more interesting and not infallible at all.

Turing (the A.I.) is evolving into a full-fledged person. She’s got morals. She’s got feelings! And she has limitations. She can’t move around, and her access to information is limited in certain areas. This leads to her figuring out how to do her detecting in rather unusual ways, and that make the book fun to read.

The mystery is pretty good– if it was slightly tweaked I think it could pass as a technothriller, actually– but the best part is Turing and her evolution. In the beginning of the book she’s already pretty evolved, with human-y things, but watching her grow into even more of a person by the end of the book was fun to read. I suppose it speaks to my sci-fi side, the side that loves robots and stuff.

The only niggle I have is that I don’t think the solution (or the ending) was done as well as the rest of the book was. After finishing it I wasn’t entirely sure I had even read it correctly, because surely that wasn’t the right solution? But it was. And it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. So. That was disappointing.

I liked the rest of the book, though, especially the human sidekicks Turing picks up. And the techno talk isn’t even really out-of-date, because Ms Andrews keeps things somewhat vague. Yay! She’s also written about a billion other mysteries that I’m going to have to track down because they all look good, too.