2010 April » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Daily Stuff (3)

Posted by Anastasia on April 14, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 142010

Jen at Jen’s Bookshelf is doing a special Detectives Around the World week which I did NOT know about until yesterday, unfortunately, or else I would have tried to join in. But! There’s lots of interesting posts happening, including Monday’s and Tuesday’s And today’s reviews and discussion posts. Also, you can vote for you favorite detective through Friday. Good stuff!

It’s National Library Week! (With Neil Gaiman as chair!) This year’s theme is about communities thriving at a library, and while I love my main campus library I think the general community (aka the non-campus community) thrives better at my main public library, which is also awesome, although somewhat less easy for me to get to. So, big shout out to all those folks who work at the Main Library!

Jackie of Farm Lane Books has an interesting post about US bloggers versus UK bloggers. While I don’t necessarily agree with her perceptions of US bloggers, I did think this bit was interesting:

Most of the books are very American based and while I do enjoy reading books set in the US I also like to read books from other countries and ones written in translation. I find that these are poorly represented in the US.

It’s true; we’re pretty insular in the US, even with reading challenges and such trying to rectify that balance. I think also we don’t have a large input (is that the word I want?) of translated books, unlike other countries, and I think that’s part of the problem, too.

Also, Kim wants your input on the FTC disclosure thingy! For a paper! Help a girl out, y’all.

Review: The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Posted by Anastasia on April 14, 2010 5 Responses »

Apr 142010

82. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Publication: Harvest Books; Annotated edition (July 3, 2006), Paperback, 348pp / ISBN 0156031574
Genre: Fiction
Rating:
Read: March 31-April 1, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:

The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece, standing with those few works of twentieth-century literature that have created unique forms of their own. In deeply poetic prose, Woolf traces the lives of six children from infancy to death who fleetingly unite around the unseen figure of a seventh child, Percival. Allusive and mysterious, The Waves yields new treasures upon each reading.

Previous VW adventures: To the Lighthouse | Orlando

Review

After two wonderful VW books (see above), I’ve come across something slightly less wonderful. It’s not a dud, and I did enjoy reading it (sort of), but it’s not at the same level as To the Lighthouse and Orlando. That confuses me, because The Waves is considered to be VW’s opus.

See, my problem with The Waves is that I think it’s too caught up in its narrative technique. The story isn’t directly related through a third person omniscient narrator, like in Orlando, and it isn’t even really inside the heads of the characters, like in To the Lighthouse. Instead, each character “speaks” their story. Their plot threads intertwine, which is nifty, and there is still some of VW’s stream-of-consciousness stuff, which is also nifty, but the narrative is definitely dominated by what each character “says.”

Okay, so, this technique is interesting, and definitely it’s an evolution of what VW was doing in her earlier books, but it also overrides whatever she was trying to do with the story. The story is secondary– it’s the style that’s paramount in The Waves, and while I like stylish books I also like them to have a good story.
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Review: The Ladies' Paradise by Emile Zola

Posted by Anastasia on April 13, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 132010

87. The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola
Publication: Oxford University Press (September 1, 2008) originally written 1883, Paperback, 480pp / ISBN 0199536902
Genre: Fiction
Rating:
Read: April 7-8, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:

The Ladies’ Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) recounts the spectacular development of the modern department store in late nineteenth century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family; it is emblematic of consumer culture and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place at the end of the century. Octave Mouret, the store’s owner-manager, masterfully exploits the desires of his female customers. In his private life as much as in business he is the great seducer. But when he falls in love with the innocent Denise Baudu, he discovers she is the only one of the salesgirls who refuses to be commodified.

Review

No, I’m not actually doing this month’s Classics Circuit– I had to read this for a class. And since I hadn’t managed to finish any of the books I was supposed to read for this class because they were boring, I thought this too would be a dud. But it’s not! Imagine how surprised I was to love The Ladies’ Paradise, how happy I was that it was funny and sad and romantic and enthralling.

The Ladies’ Paradise is centered around a department store, something that’s commonplace to us today but was horrifically new in late 19th century Paris. Within and outside that department store are the characters that move the story along, and together they make a story that’s really fun to read.

One of the best things about The Ladies’ Paradise is that it does tackle the advent of consumerism, and how it changes Parisian society and commerce. The people in the book are slowly becoming ever more entangled in the world of the department store, when you can find whatever you need all in one (huge) building for cheaper prices than anywhere else. The majority of the women in the book– the rich/noble women, that is– are completely obsessed with The Ladies’ Paradise (the store), even to the point of making their husbands bankrupt. Watching them get sucked into the machine of the superstore is both comedic and horrific, especially when you compare these women of the late 1800s to the women of today’s Western world.
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Review: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Posted by Anastasia on April 13, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 132010

75. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Publication: Ballantine Books (November 13, 1991), Paperback, 416pp / ISBN 0345370775
Genre: Thriller
Rating:
Read: March 26-27, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong…and science proves a dangerous toy….

Review

For once I went into reading a book fully knowing what I’d be getting. I’ve read a Michael Crichton book before (Timeline), and I was pretty familiar with his writing style and his lackadaisical use of science. Furthermore, I’m a fan of the movie version of Jurassic Park– so I knew what was going to happen and what it’d be like reading it, basically. No shocks here! I knew it wasn’t going to be super-duper fabulous, and it wasn’t.

But! I still liked it. Michael Crichton isn’t ever going to be my favorite author, but I enjoy his books because they’re brain candy with bite. Jurassic Park was fun, and though it was very different from the movie I did enjoy reading it. I was kind of surprised at how much Dr Grant’s character had changed from the book to the movie; in the book he’s much more…realistic, I guess. He doesn’t go help yank the kids out of their jeep when the T-rex attacks, for instance. He’s no movie hero.

That was kind of disappointing. I wanted a big hero character, someone who could kick the dinosaurs’ butts and then write an article about it afterwards. But no one’s really a hero in Jurassic Park, and I can’t decide if that’s good or not. On the one hand, no heroes means it’s more realistic (as realistic as a book about dinosaurs living in modern times can be). On the other hand, it didn’t endear anyone in the book to me. I got into the actual story, because, hello. Dinosaurs in real life. But I didn’t like any of the characters.

Besides that, there was the typical Crichton things like weird dialogue, bad science, and people dying that you don’t want to die. Oh! And characters that show up in random places, tell you their life story, and then disappear for the rest of the book. You know, one-use only characters. And there’s some “we must be responsible with science” speeches– mostly by Dr Malcolm– that were interesting in theory but boring to read (I skimmed them). But if you can get over that and let your brain go on auto-pilot for a bit, Jurassic Park is a fun book that’ll appeal to any dino lover out there (and possibly even science lovers).

Just don’t expect it to be like the movie, because you’ll be disappointed. Throw the movie out of your mind, and go into the book with a clean slate. And then, afterwards, read this Wikipedia article to learn about what science went weird where. (It’s actually not as much as you’d think.)

And

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Review: The Enchanted Forest chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

Posted by Anastasia on April 12, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 122010

61./67./73./79. The Enchanted Forest chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede
Publication: four audiobooks read by Full Cast Audio, ~16 hours total
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Adventure
Rating: overall
Read: March 2010
Source: Library

Review

I read this in the order that Amazon put them into, which apparently isn’t the right way to do it because it puts the book that was written FIRST, last. I think this is kind of like the Chronicles of Chrestomanci series– it’s best to read those in the order DWJ writes them, not necessarily the internal chronological order.

Anyway, I didn’t do that. I read the series in internal chronological order, which was wrong. DON’T DO WHAT I DID. It messes up Talking to Dragons if you do that, and it’s probably why I didn’t like it as much as I liked the others. So.

I’m going to review these in the order I read them. I don’t particularly want to have spoilers in here, but since I’m reviewing the whole series it’s a little inevitable. And I’ll try to keep this short, since I don’t want to go on forever about the same thing. If you don’t want to read my whole review, it basically boils down to this:

There are a few rough spots, both in the books and the cast reading it, but the Enchanted Forest chronicles is a great series for anyone who wants to read a different sort of fantasy, one with humor, strong female characters, and lots of exciting action!
Continue reading »

TSS (April 11): Post-Read-a-thon Lethargy

Posted by Anastasia on April 11, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 112010

When I woke up this morning I was feeling rather energetic, like I could read a million more books today and not even break a sweat. But now I just want to sit and stare at the TV for a while, and I haven’t read any books.

I hate this post read-a-thon slump! I want to read today, not sit around like a lump. But I can’t make myself focus, and so instead I think maybe I’ll write some reviews, or something. Let’s hope this lethargy leaves me alone by tomorrow, or I don’t know what I’m going to do.

In other news, I’m closing in on my 100th book read this year! This is so exciting– I wonder what it’ll be? If my current reading trend continues it’ll probably be a memoir or a classic; who wants to guess which genre it ends up being?

Books read this week:
85. Diggers – Terry Pratchett (read by ?) [rating: 4/5]
86. My Autobiography – Charlie Chaplin [rating: 4/5]
87. The Ladies’ Paradise – Emile Zola [rating: 5/5] %
88. Othello Vol. 1 – Satomi Ikezawa [rating: 4/5] %
89. I-Doll Vol. 1 – Mi-ae Choi [rating: 3/5] %
90. Autobiography – A. A. Milne [rating: 4.5/5]
91. Bombos VS Everything Vol. 1 – Maximo V. Lorenzo [rating: 4/5] %
92. Spy High: Mission One – AJ Butcher [rating: 3.5/5] %
93. Earthlight Vol. 1 – Stuart Moore & Christopher Schons [rating: 3.5/5] &
94. The Club of Queer Trades – G.K. Chesterton [rating: 3/5] %
95. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate – Jacqueline Kelly [rating: 5/5]
96. Perloo the Bold – Avi [rating: 4/5] %
97. Bertie and the Tinman – Peter Lovesey [rating: 4.5/5] %

Books reviewed this week:
34. The Godmother Tree – Ruth Wallace-Brodeur [rating: 4/5] %
35. The Last Guru – Daniel M. Pinkwater [rating: 2/5] %
53. Heist Society – Ally Carter [rating: 2/5]
59. The Circus Lunicus – Marilyn Singer [rating: 3.5/5] %
74. Orlando – Virginia Woolf [rating: 5/5] %
91. Bombos VS Everything Vol. 1 – Maximo V. Lorenzo [rating: 4/5] %
92. Spy High: Mission One – AJ Butcher [rating: 3.5/5] %
93. Earthlight Vol. 1 – Stuart Moore & Christopher Schons [rating: 3.5/5] &
94. The Club of Queer Trades – G.K. Chesterton [rating: 3/5] %
95. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate – Jacqueline Kelly [rating: 5/5]
96. Perloo the Bold – Avi [rating: 4/5] %
97. Bertie and the Tinman – Peter Lovesey [rating: 4.5/5] %

Also: Rereading Holmes: A Study in Scarlet Ch 5-10

Mount TBR Stats
9 books conquered
27 books conquered total
1 additions (from PaperbackSwap)
2 subtractions (boring graphic novels)
324 books remaining

Currently reading:
I’ve been on a hankering for both memoirs and classics, and as I don’t particularly want to read any of the memoirs I have at hand right now I decided to go with classics. So I’m reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde! I don’t expect to read more than a few pages today (trying to recharge after the ‘thon, after all), but I’m hoping I’ll enjoy it.

Dewey’s 24 Hour Spring Read-a-thon: Ending Post

Posted by Anastasia on April 11, 2010 No Responses »

Apr 112010

Okay, so! Summing up time.

I’m pretty proud of myself this read-a-thon, because I got a lot done and almost met my goals. I had a lot of fun doing it, too, and even better: I didn’t get a headache and woke up at a reasonable time today! Ha!

I don’t want to repeat what I’ve got in my Starting Post, since that’s got all the stats and mini-reviews and such in it already. Including the slow decline into my inability to read anything! So check that out if you’re interested.

But an interesting thing is that I made it to just over 14 hours both this ‘thon and the last, so it seems that 14 hours is the maximum amount of time I can read without collapsing into a pile of useless goo! That’s good to know. And contrary to what happened last time, I DO feel like reading another book today! Actually, when I went to bed last night(/morning) I felt weird because I wasn’t reading a book. I really got my reading groove on, yeah.

Oh! I know, I’ll do the end of event meme. Continue reading »