2011 August » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

REVIEW: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

Posted by Anastasia on August 12, 2011 7 Responses »

Aug 122011

87. The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Publication: Viking Adult (August 9, 2011), Hardcover, 416pp / ISBN 0670022314
Genre: Fantasy

Read: August 10, 2011
Source: Publisher (thanks so much!)

Summary from Amazon:

Quentin and his friends are now the kings and queens of Fillory, but the days and nights of royal luxury are starting to pall. After a morning hunt takes a sinister turn, Quentin and his old friend Julia charter a magical sailing ship and set out on an errand to the wild outer reaches of their kingdom. Their pleasure cruise becomes an adventure when the two are unceremoniously dumped back into the last place Quentin ever wants to see: his parent’s house in Chesterton, Massachusetts. And only the black, twisted magic that Julia learned on the streets can save them.

Review

Okay, so, first off: it’s been ages since I read and reviewed The Magicians. It’s been so long that I forgot the last half of the book and so had to reread it before I could read this one. Can I just say? The second time around I liked The Magicians much more (I even rated it a whole bird higher). Since I knew what to expect I could appreciate more what Lev Grossman was trying to do– he was trying to flip conventional fantasy storytelling on its head. Neat! I mean, I still hated Quentin and it still made me feel bad for entertaining thoughts about going on a fantastical adventure. I still felt heartbroken and bruised at the end. But it wasn’t as bad as what happened the first time around.

I said on Twitter the other day that I think LG realized just how depressed he made a lot of people with The Magicians, and so he made The Magician King way less traumatizing.

Not that there aren’t heart-rending moments in The Magician King. I don’t think it’d be an LG book if he didn’t try to slice your heart in two at least once. Continue reading »

Thursday Tea (August 11): The Unwanteds

Posted by Anastasia on August 11, 2011 8 Responses »

Aug 112011

The book: I started reading The Unwanteds right before bed last night, which was a mistake because then I had to stay up to keep reading it and I didn’t stop until way late and then I couldn’t stop thinking about The Unwanteds which made sleeping very difficult and now all I want to do is get off the computer and read The Unwanteds. So.

Here’s what The Unwanteds is about:

Every year in Quill, thirteen-year-olds are sorted into categories: the strong, intelligent Wanteds go to university, and the artistic Unwanteds are sent to their deaths

Thirteen-year-old Alex tries his hardest to be stoic when his fate is announced as Unwanted, even while leaving behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted. Upon arrival at the destination where he expected to be eliminated, however, Alex discovers a stunning secret–behind the mirage of the “death farm” there is instead a place called Artime.

In Artime, each child is taught to cultivate their creative abilities and learn how to use them magically, weaving spells through paintbrushes and musical instruments. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it’s a wondrous transformation.

But it’s a rare, unique occurence for twins to be separated between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron’s bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of Artime that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate, magical battle.

The tea: I have NO good teas left. All the ones I have are ones I don’t want to drink. Except for English Breakfast, I guess. EB it is.

Do they go together? No. The Unwanteds is set in some sort of dystopian society where they kill kids if they smile too much. I’m guessing they don’t drink a lot of tea. (Maybe in the utopian part they drink tea?)

Other tea drinkers

Alison is drinking Earl Grey Lavender tea and reading Odder Than Ever!

The Book Gatherer is drinking Fresh & Fruity and reading Fast Friends!

(Leave a link to your TT post in the comments and I’ll add you to the tea drinkers list!)

August BAND Discussion: Detectives and memoirs and obsessions, oh my

Posted by Anastasia on August 10, 2011 16 Responses »

Aug 102011

Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees, or BAND, is a thing where any blogger who likes any sort of non-fiction can join in and discuss awesome books! Huzzah! You can learn more about BAND at Kim’s blog here. And don’t forget to join in if you’d like!

This month’s BAND discussion is hosted by Amy of Amy Reads, and the discussion topic is:

How did you get into reading nonfiction? Do you remember your first nonfiction book or subject? If so, do you still read those subjects?

I never really read non-fiction when I was younger, not unless I was forced to by my teachers. If I did read a non-fiction book, it was because I had read a fiction book beforehand and wanted to know more. (Or, more likely, I found a non-fiction book sitting next to a fiction one and read it thinking it was fiction. My elementary school library wasn’t the most organized of places.) It wasn’t until I got into my travel memoir phase in college that I started reading non-fiction on its own merit (including non-travel memoir non-fiction).

I’m fairly certain my first non-fiction book was either something on ancient Egyptian history (one of my obsessions in elementary school) or something on the Pinkertons (spies/detectives were my other obsession). Those both happened because I was in love with The Egypt Game and Harriet the Spy– also I thought I would be a private investigator/Egyptologist when I grew up, so it seemed like a good idea to bone up on those subjects.

After that, I usually worked my way through whatever else I was obsessed with: paranormal stuff (middle school), political history (early high school), memoirs/biographies (later high school) and, finally, travel memoirs (which I wrote about for last month’s discussion).

I’m still kind of obsessed with the things I listed above (except for politics), although they’ve morphed into slightly different beasts. My general obsession for all things detectives, for instance, is now an obsession for all things Sherlock Holmes. For the most part, those interests manifest in fiction books more than non-fiction (not sure why).

As for non-fiction, right now I mostly stick with memoirs. I assume I’ll become obsessed with something else in the next couple of years, but I have no idea what it’ll be. (Quite possibly it could be urban farming/homesteading/etc., as I’ve sneakily started a little collection of books on those subjects already. Haven’t read them, though.)

Do you still read books about things you were interested in when you were younger?

REVIEW: Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O’Roark Dowell

Posted by Anastasia on August 9, 2011 2 Responses »

Aug 092011

69. Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O’Roark Dowell
Publication: Atheneum (March 22, 2011), Hardcover, 224pp / ISBN 1416995854
Genre: YA Fiction (could also work as MG)

Read: July 9, 2011
Source: Publisher (thank you!)

Summary from Amazon:

Janie Gorman wants to be normal. The problem with that: she’s not. She’s smart and creative and a little bit funky. She’s also an unwilling player in her parents’ modern-hippy, let’s-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment (regretfully, instigated by a younger, much more enthusiastic Janie). This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that “normal target.” She has to milk goats every day…and endure her mother’s pseudo celebrity in the homemade-life, crunchy mom blogosphere. Goodbye the days of frozen lasagna and suburban living, hello crazy long bus ride to high school and total isolation–and hovering embarrassments of all kinds. The fresh baked bread is good…the threat of homemade jeans, not so much.

It would be nice to go back to that old suburban life…or some grown up, high school version of it, complete with nice, normal boyfriends who wear crew neck sweaters and like social studies. So, what’s wrong with normal? Well, kind of everything. She knows that, of course, why else would she learn bass and join Jam Band, how else would she know to idolize infamous wild-child and high school senior Emma (her best friend Sarah’s older sister), why else would she get arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school (jail was not part of the assignment). And, why else would she kind of be falling in “like” with a boy named Monster—yes, that is his real name. Janie was going for normal, but she missed her mark by about ten miles…and we mean that as a compliment.

Review

This book is severely testing my moratorium on using the word “cute” in my reviews. I went to the thesaurus looking for an alternative, but it was pointless because nothing else fits.

Well, okay, yes. It’s also funny, and sweet, and also a little bit silly. My own high school life was spent mostly worrying about what my friends thought of me and (especially) whether they thought I was too weird to hang out with, so reading about Janie having the same problem was a trip down memory lane. Luckily (and kind of obviously), Ten Miles is about being yourself even in the face of adversity– even in the face of HEAVY adversity, as in the case of the people who ran the freedom school. Continue reading »

REVIEW: Ringlingville USA by Jerry Apps

Posted by Anastasia on August 8, 2011 8 Responses »

Aug 082011

78. Ringlingville USA: The Stupendous Story of Seven Siblings and Their Stunning Circus Success by Jerry Apps
Publication: Wisconsin Historical Society Press (October 6, 2004), Paperback, 280pp / ISBN 087020355X
Genre: Non-fiction, History

Read: July 22, 2011
Source: Bought

Summary from Amazon:

The Ringling Brothers began their business under the most modest of circumstances and through hard work, business savvy, and some luck created the largest, most famous circus in the world. They became wealthy men, one 50 cent admission ticket at a time.

Ringlingville USA chronicles the brothers’ journey from immigrant poverty to enduring glory as the kings of the circus world. The Ringlings and their circus were last studied in depth over four decades ago. Now, for the first time, the brothers’ detailed financial records and personal correspondence are available to researchers. Jerry Apps weaves together that information with newspaper accounts, oral histories, colorful anecdotes, and stunning circus ephemera and photos, many never before been published, to illuminate the importance of the Ringlings’ accomplishments. He describes how the Ringling Brothers confronted the challenges of taxation, war, economic pressure, changing technology, and personal sorrows to find their place in history. The brothers emerge as complex characters whose ambition, imagination, and pure hucksterism fueled the phenomenon that was the Ringling Brothers’ Circus.

Review

Look, clowns are scary, right? But clowns aren’t the only part of a circus and I LOVE the circus, even if I haven’t been to one since I was 10 or 12 or something. That last circus? That last circus was the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, and it was AWESOME. I love books about circuses, real or imagined, and so by all rights this book, which is about the history of the Ringling Bros. circus, should have been at least as awesome as the circus itself was.

Well, it wasn’t. Continue reading »

The Sunday Salon (August 7): Soon my room will be full of boxes

Posted by Anastasia on August 7, 2011 10 Responses »

Aug 072011

Okay, so I have no idea what to write about for this week’s Salon. So I’m stealing Kim’s idea (sorry, Kim!):

4 boxes of books packed so far. I think I can keep myself to under 10 boxes, but it depends on how many TBR books turn into keeper books.
3 more shelves of keeper books left to pack. I’ve already done about 10 shelves.
11 books I forgot I had found hiding in an old box. Most of them are keeper books, too! Why were they in that box?

6 shelves of TBR books to be either read or gotten rid of. Although that’s kind of wrong, because I know I’m going to keep all of my BEA books and probably most of the translations I have. So it’s more like 4 shelves.
11 books removed from my TBR shelves as I’m never going to read them even if I was desperate.
13 review books needing to be read in the next few months. Technically I should be giving up on a few of these because I’ve had them since the beginning of the year and if I haven’t read them by now I probably won’t ever read them. But, well.

27 books sent to Powell’s for store credit, which I’ll need when I start restocking my library after the move.

5 weeks until Book Blogger Appreciation Week happens. I applied to be a judge!

1 million hours (approximately) spent staring at the computer instead of reading books. I’ve had a hard time focusing this week!

4 weeks until the next Classroom Takeover happens, which I hope someone will do and send to me because I can’t work up the energy to do another one myself. Which is why there wasn’t one this month, if you noticed.

2 hours I’ve spent working on this entry. Time to go and do other things! Other things like packing…sigh. Continue reading »

REVIEW: Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Posted by Anastasia on August 6, 2011 10 Responses »

Aug 062011

70. Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Publication: Margaret K. McElderry (June 7, 2011), Hardcover, 464pp / ISBN 1442429984
Genre: YA Sci-fi/Fantasy, Dystopian

Read: July 9, 2011
Source: Contest win

Summary from Amazon:

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That’s fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba’s world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she’s a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

Review

I’ve actually sort of gone of dystopian books lately, if only because there’s so many out there and they all kind of resemble each other. Blood Red Road isn’t an exception to that– it’s your typical desert-y Wild West-ish sort of dystopia (filled with white people)– but I still really enjoyed it anyway– probably because women aren’t just automatically regulated to baby-making machines/kitchen slaves, as in so many other dystopias^[1].

In Blood Red Road, all the female characters are either fighters, gang members, or on their way to becoming one or the other. Not a lot of variety, sure, but it was a nice change. I have a secret love for books about girl gangs (I think it may have something to do with my love for Japanese pinky films) and that probably contributed heavily to my love for this book.

Also it’s just really well written. Continue reading »