2011 January » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Thursday Tea (Jan 20): The Odyssey

Posted by Anastasia on January 20, 2011 7 Responses »

Jan 202011

Thursday Tea is a weekly(-ish) meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is a cup of tea, the book you’re currently reading, and the answers to the following 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 you think the two go together.

The book: Right now I’m about 17% into The Odyssey (reading it on my Kindle, obviously). I splurged for the Fagles translation because Claire told me to, although technically it wasn’t splurging anyway because I used gift cards. But! It was definitely worth it. I have another translation in dead tree format somewhere, and it was terrible. Translations really do make all the difference, for realz.

The tea: I seem to have misplaced almost all my Stash Christmas teas (or someone STOLE THEM), so I’m back to regular ol’ Earl Grey. It’s actually kind of surprising to me, how much I like Earl Grey now; when I was younger I thought it tasted horrible, and I was English Breakfast all the way. Now I can’t stand English Breakfast (unless it’s mixed with Earl Grey for iced tea, the way my mom makes it) and I adore Earl Grey! But I still don’t like Queen’s Breakfast.

Do they go together? Yes, actually! And here’s why: Earl Grey is smooth, and rich, and when you put milk into it, it gets all cloudy. This sort of reminds me of Athena, one of the main characters in The Odyssey! Besides the fact that she has grey eyes (ones that flash an awful lot) and that goes with the whole “Earl Grey” thing, she does seem like the sort of person who’d like the taste of Earl Grey. Don’t you think?

Athena just screams “tea drinker” to me. I don’t know why!

What’s your Thursday Tea?

If you’d like to participate, please feel free to use the image in your own post! Here’s a code for it; just copy-paste it into your own Thursday Tea post.
<a href="http://birdbrainbb.net/"><img border="0" src="http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/369/thursdayteanew.jpg"></a>

And you can link to your post in this Mr Linky, if you want!

REVIEW: Lockdown: Escape from Furnace 1 by Alexander Gordon Smith

Posted by Anastasia on January 20, 2011 1 Response »

Jan 202011

03. Lockdown: Escape from Furnace 1 by Alexander Gordon Smith
Publication: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 27, 2009), ebook, 380KB / ISBN 9781429946582
Genre: YA Sci-fi, Thriller

Rating: Borrow it
Read: January 10-13, 2011

Source: Bought

Summary from Amazon:

Furnace Penitentiary: the world’s most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.

Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

Review

I bought this when it was on sale a few months ago, and it turned out to be a perfect “while on vacation” book. It’s exciting, a bit scary, and it moves really quickly. The characters are (mostly) interesting and enjoyable to read about, although it’s all dudes and there isn’t a female character anywhere. NOWHERE. A mom and a sister are mentioned by the male characters once or twice, and that’s it. Furnace is, apparently, an all-male facility? Or maybe it’s just boys who cause enough trouble (supposedly) to warrant going to Furnace? But still: where the hell are the girls?

The lack of ANY female characters seriously disturbs me, and it made the book much less enjoyable for me than it could have been. Also, to be honest, it took me a while to get my suspension of disbelief up and running. I honestly just don’t think there’d ever be a prison where kids were put and then left there until they died. Even after a summer of gang murders or whatever– and that was never fully explained, by the way– you know the blame would not be on all kids everywhere. But then, I guess the prison isn’t supposed to be an actual prison (more like a testing facility?), and maybe the warden’s hypno-eyes took over congress or something and let the thing be built. But still. Pretty hard for me to believe, which made the entire situation less scary than it could have been if it was set more within our reality. Real scary things are always more scary than fantasy scary things, you know? Or at least I think so.

But anyway, for those who don’t have such a hard time suspending disbelief, and for those who don’t mind the complete absence of an entire gender, you’d probably really enjoy this. It has some good things to say about responsibility, friendship, and life/death. I liked that Alex knew he messed up and that he could have changed his fate any time if he just cared enough to, if he wasn’t so greedy (his word) and selfish. Taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes isn’t something that teenagers tend to do, really, and I was happy for once to have a character recognize the significance of the consequences of his/her own actions and the part he/she played in bringing them about.

Although all that does tend to get glossed over by the violence/action/puke, so it’s not nearly as effective as something in the way of a Walter Dean Myers book.

So basically: good book for boys and people who like near-dystopic, set-in-the-future books with weird sci-fi/horror elements in them, but it desperately needs some female characters that aren’t dead and/or only mentioned by male characters. I haven’t even touched on the writing, but Leila says it’s like Darren Shan and James Patterson, and that seems a pretty apt description.

And

Get your own copy @ Amazon (paper) and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

Other reviews: Bookshelves of Doom | Presenting Lenore | A Chair, A Fireplace, & A Tea Cozy

Buy My Books (1)

Posted by Anastasia on January 19, 2011 No Responses »

Jan 192011

What it is

Buy My Books is a new feature I’m doing where very other week I highlight five books I have for sale at Half.com! After recently freaking out about my TBR pile, I purged a ton from my shelves– both unread and read books. Living in an apartment means I can’t have a yard sale, so instead I’m hoping to sell a few of them online!

What do you get out of it? By buying my books you’re doing two things:
1. helping me make more space in my bedroom for me to actually live in
2. helping me save up some shipping money so I can hold more giveaways! I’ve been wanting to do more but really can’t because I currently don’t have money for shipping (this is also why I’m not trading books through PaperbackSwap or BookMooch now). If I can make some extra money by selling my old books, I can host more giveaways! Yay!

Whether you end up buying a book or just stopped by to check out this post, thank you so much for your support. The blogging community is one of the friendlist communities I’ve been a part of, and it’s a lot of fun hanging out with y’all.

The books

In Search of the Immortals: Mummies, Death and the Afterlife by Howard Reid
Summary:

Covering every mummifying culture in history – from the ancient Egyptians to the Chichorros, from China’s Takla Makan desert to the Guanches of the Canary Isles – Reid brings these ancient cultures to life and in so doing comes to represent his personal quest to find an answer to that most epic and timeless of human problems: the meaning of death.

Book info: Headline Book Publishing (January 1999), Hardcover, 307pp / ISBN 0747275556
Price: $2.98
Condition notes: dust jacket is ratty around the edges
Why I got it: I love anything about Egypt!
Why I’m selling it: I may love Egyptian history, but apparently I don’t feel like actually reading anything about it. I prefer fiction to non-fiction, I guess?
Buy my book!

The Shadow Guests by Joan Aiken
Summary:

After the mysterious disappearance of both his mother and older brother, Cosmo is sent away to live with his eccentric mathematician aunt. Lonely and confused, Cosmo must also deal with being the new kid at school. Not an easy assignment! But things take a weird twist when Cosmo is visited by ghosts from the past. Ghosts who claim to need his help fighting an ancient curse!

Only in time will Cosmo learn that he is at the center of that ancient…and deadly…curse.

Book info: Starscape (February 17, 2003) (originally published 1980), Paperback, 192pp / ISBN 0765345307
Price: $0.75
Condition notes: A bit of shelf wear around the edges.
Why I got it: Somehow the title got onto my wishlist– I can’t really remember how?
Why I’m selling it: I enjoyed reading it, but it’s not a book I’ll reread, so I’m passing it on.
Buy my book!

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Summary:

In the late 1960s, the author spent nearly two years on the ward for teenage girls at McLean Hospital, a renowned psychiatric facility. Her memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perceptions, while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.

Book info: Vintage; Reprint edition (April 19, 1994), Paperback, 192pp / ISBN 0679746048
Price: $5.25
Condition notes: Just a big of shelf wear from being on my, er, shelves!
Why I got it: I had to read it for a class, although that was so long ago I can’t actually remember which class it was for.
Why I’m selling it: I liked it, but it’s not a reread book for me. I want someone else to enjoy it, now!
Buy my book!

Pounding the Pavement by Jennifer van der Kwast
Summary:

After extricating herself from a morass of self-pity strewn with candy bar wrappers and wine bottles, Sarah turns to the all-important task of padding her résumé—while artfully dodging her parents’ attempts to bribe her into law school. Of course, padding your résumé puts you in jeopardy of being construed as over-qualified. In which case you might try unpadding your résumé, which then puts you in danger of being labeled inexperienced. Which leaves you with the option of stalking your ex-boss in the hope that she’ll drag you along in her ascent to greatness in another company. Unless she stabs you in the back first. Meanwhile, when a temp job saddles her with a massive crush on a Brooklyn-dwelling dreamboat named Jake, Sarah’s already full plate is crowded with lust, jealousy, and mild obsession, just when she’s trying to be professional.

Book info: Random House Australia (2005), Paperback, 280pp / ISBN 1863254730
Price: $3.23
Condition notes: Like new, it’s just been sitting on my shelves for two years.
Why I got it: It was on sale and I was in my “women’s lit” phase back then, so I grabbed it.
Why I’m selling it: I honestly can’t see myself reading it in the next year or so, so I’m letting it go.
Buy my book!

The Celestial Steam Locomotive by Michael Coney
Summary:

It is the year 143,624 Cyclic, and Earth possesses only a past. The immortal Alan-Blue-Cloud, remembers what was and what will be, and tells the story of Earth’s future history. After the Great Migration, most humans that were left on Earth withdrew into the Domes where they slept and dreamed with the help of the Rainbow.

Book info: Houghton Mifflin (1983), Hardcover, 275pp / ISBN 039534395X
Price: $0.75
Condition notes: Really good for an 80′s book! The jacket has wear around the edges, but nothing major.
Why I got it: It’s got a FLYING TRAIN on the cover!
Why I’m selling it: I read about 30 pages and was just completely disinterested– it’s one of those psychedelic sci-fi novel that I just can’t get into. I’m hoping one of you all can!
Buy my book!

If none of these books interest you, I’ve got LOADS more for sale at my Half.com store. Check it out! You might find something you’ll like.

My bunker book list

Posted by Anastasia on January 18, 2011 2 Responses »

Jan 182011

Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’m currently featured over at Bonjour, Cass! in her Book Apocalypse feature! I had to come up with a list of ten books on my TBR pile* that I wanted to bring with me into my bunker in the event of an apocalypse– I don’t know which kind of apocalypse, really, except I want there to be zombies because zombies always make the best kind of apocalypse.

Thanks to Cass for starting this feature and letting me participate in it!

*Although now technically at least three of those books are off my TBR pile because I purged them the other day, but whatever. I wrote the bunker list before the Great TBR Book Purge of January 2011!

REVIEW: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Posted by Anastasia on January 18, 2011 5 Responses »

Jan 182011

02. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Publication: Orbit (February 25, 2010), ebook, 544kb / ISBN ? (the ebook doesn’t have one?)
Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: Buy it!
Read: January 9, 2011

Source: Bought
Read for The Women of Fantasy Book Club

Summary from Amazon:

Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother’s death and her family’s bloody history.

With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate – and gods and mortals – are bound inseparably together.

Review

I’ve written and rewritten this review three times now, and I’m getting really sick of it. So this review is now going going to be short, to the point, and AWESOME.

It’s always good to start on a positive note, right?

So: I loved The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I love the writing, the themes, how it doesn’t gloss over important issues that pop up in the relationship between humans and gods or humans and humans. I like the action, the intrigue, the characters, the setting. I loved the language, especially in the parts that tell stories about the mythology of the world in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I had a great time reading this book, and I can’t recommend it enough to you people.

More detail? Okay. I loved Yeine. She’s such a great female protagonist: she’s strong, intelligent, and feisty. And she’s all that without falling into the stereotypical action girl thing! I liked that she had faults (self-doubt!) and that she wasn’t always sure what she should do in a situation, but that she didn’t let that stop her from helping people (or gods) when they needed help.

The author

The secondary characters were just as flawed and wonderful as Yeine was, although some of them didn’t get nearly as much screentime as they needed to have, I think. One character in particular, who committed a betrayal later on in the story, barely even showed up for two second before that. It did make the betrayal less effective, and so the punishment for the betrayal then seemed unimportant (except, I suppose, for the fact of who DID the punishment, and how. I think that part was important. Sorry I can’t go more into detail! This keeping away from spoilers thing is annoying sometimes).

I also really liked the world setting! The mythology was really interesting, even more so because the connection between gods and humans was even more pronounced than you might find in other religions– it sort of reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, in the part where gods affects humans but also humans control whether gods live or die. I did wish that the actual world had been more fully fleshed out; we only really get to see one section in detail of what I assume is a huge world (100,000 kingdoms, right? Or am I misunderstanding that?), and I really wanted to know more of what the world looked like.

If you’d like a fantasy novel with a strong heroine, a great world setting, and with lots of stuff to say, you couldn’t go wrong with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. It does have romance, and the romance is central to the story, but it’s not mushy and, er, stupid? Like some other fantasy romances. It’s actually kind of sweet, and you know it’s a good kind of romance if I can say that!

Right?

And

Get your own copy @ Amazon (paper) and support Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog!

Other reviews: The Literary Omnivore | Fantasy Book Critic | Dear Author

Author photo lifted from her website. It’s a really neat website, too! I’m just now getting into her posts about the world of HTK– they’re interesting as hell.

Mount TBR Plan of Action

Posted by Anastasia on January 17, 2011 14 Responses »

Jan 172011

"We think it's a really good one."

Hi! I’m back from vacation! Disney World was amazing, and I’ll have pictures and stuff up on my other blog sometime this week…hopefully. I’m still a little tired from all the travelling, but I’ve checked all my email (300+), zipped through my feedreader (1,000+ items, most of them “marked all read”) and cleared out my spam comments (1,501). I finished six books during my vacation (one of them a “short,” which I’m sort of counting as a book but I don’t know if it actually does?), though only one of those books was on my planned reading list. I still haven’t unpacked my suitcase but I wanted to get this post up before I lost my train of thought– something that happens remarkably easily around here!

Okay, so: while I was on vacation I realized three things:
1. I like reading books on my Kindle! It’s a lot of fun, and I have such a stockpile of books on it now I won’t run out of things to read for a while. (I’m talking years, here.) My ebook TBR pile also doesn’t stress me out like my paper one does, because it’s “invisible,” i.e. it doesn’t loom over me like my TBR bookshelves do.
2. A lot of my TBR paper books are available in ebook format.
3. The size of my TBR pile is really upsetting me, and I need to do something about it.

The thing about number three is that I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t stand having a lot of stuff around me. Partly this is because I’m planning to move, and thus need to get rid of a lot of my stuff, but also because my room is pretty small and the STUFF makes it even smaller. I feel trapped, and that’s not a good feeling (obviously). Continue reading »

Nightshifted: possibly the greatest book yet-to-be-published?

Posted by Anastasia on January 14, 2011 2 Responses »

Jan 142011

From an i09 post about Cassie Alexander‘s urban fantasy novel, Nightshifted, about a nurse who works in a ward for paranormal creatures:

While I love me some urban fantasy, it feels like when I read so much of it, that there’s a distance there between me and the protagonists — like when author-me looks at a fashion magazine. I like looking at those people for a little bit, but then they all blend together Barbie-style, and I start to feel that what they are and what they stand for is unattainable. For me, unattainable’s no fun. I wanted to write about someone who could be in danger, who would have consequences for her actions, someone who isn’t always right or the best at life. I wanted someone who would have to struggle. That’s what interests me, always has, always will.

(She got a three book deal with St. Martins, by the way. I can’t wait to read it! It’s not coming out ’til January 2012, though.)