Crazy for the booklog
Jan. 7th, 2010 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofone151. Lucifer at the Starlite, Kim Addonizio — Really enjoyable, nicely dark-and-whiskey-stained poetry collection. Which of course is now back at the library and thus cannot be quoted by me. Drat! But I am going to be making an effort to find more of Addonizio’s work.
152. Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman — Enjoyable if slight. As usual, Gaiman’s use of mythological characters—in this case, those wacky old Norse Gods—is fantastic. I just wish his human character, Odd, had been less of a cypher. His journey didn’t feel as meaningful as it could have since he was mostly such a blank: more of a Shadow, alas, and less of a Richard Mayhew. (I love Richard, okay? I will totally arm wrestle over his superiority to all other slightly befuddled Neil Gaiman protagonists. RICHARD FOREVER.)
Ahem. Anyway, fun story; not quite great. WHEN ARE YOU WRITING ANOTHER ADULT NOVEL, NEIL?
153. Locke & Key: Head Games, Joe Hill — Continues from the excellent first volume (Welcome to Lovecraft) with a sophomore effort that’s equally imaginative and exciting. I shall be needing volume three immediately, kthx.
154. Pretty Dead, Francesca Lia Block — I read this because I was excited to see a Teenage Vampire Book in which the female half of the romantic pair has fangs. Block certainly goes in a different direction than most of the books in this genre—Pretty Dead is darker, and a whole lot sexier. But it's still not particularly good. There's nothing empowering or even all that interesting about Vampire Charlotte; she became a vampire at the teeth of a controlling douche who still rules a great deal of her thoughts, and she became rich by seducing an older guy and then waiting for him to die. (I'd make a cheap Anna Nicole Smith joke, but I guess that'd be tacky now. Rats.) And while Block can certainly spin some sensual prose, it feels meaningless to me. Careless. Just as this book's characters are careless: it's like reading Daisy Buchanan, Vampyre. (Stop with the Vamp Darcy idiocies, publishers, and have a go at that!) For example: toward the end of the book, a bunch of people die in an explosion that Charlotte has a chance to stop, but she—and the reader?—apparently isn't required to care because the main characters get their happy ending. Yeah. Guess what? I no longer care about you, dead girl.
155. Crazy for the Storm, Normal Ollestad — Interesting memoir about surviving a deadly plane crash and about growing up in Malibu Canyon in the ’60s and ’70s. I know the author a little (as well as several of the people referenced in the acknowledgments), so I feel a wee bit uncomfortable talking about it in too great detail, especially as the book contains rather more detail about the author’s penis than I really needed, considering the fact that I know the author a little. But it’s a compelling read. (The parts about the plane crash and Malibu Canyon, not the parts about the author’s penis.)
156. Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy — Excellent short story collection. I’m not a fan of open-ended, snippety short stories that don’t really go anywhere and lack resolution, so I was really impressed and pleased with how complete each of Meloy’s tales seems. Over and over again, she creates rich characters and puts them in complex situations, and the stories are all different, so the collection never starts to seem samey. Not to mention: is that a great title or what?
157. Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell — I knew I was going to like this book as soon as I got to the first funny, clever footnote. Few things win me over as wholly and easily as novels with entertaining footnotes. See: Good Omens, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and most of the Discworld books for further examples.
This book has great footnotes. It’s also got a doctor in witness protection on the run from the mob—and the medical parts are as fascinating and suspenseful as the mob bits. (The author is a doctor.) The mob aspects of the novel are interesting as well, and I am normally not a fan of mafia stories—The Godfather excepted. This mafia story, however, has a shark tank scene that seems like something out of a more realistic James Bond movie, not to mention an act of sheer badassery that would leave even Benton Fraser impressed. It’s a romp in the best sense of the word. A romp with footnotes!
158. Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro — I love Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day intensely, but I found this collection of five thematically interrelated short stories disappointing. They’re not badly written or anything, but they’re very plain and unexciting. They don’t build to anything, either each alone or all together. “Okay,” one thinks upon finishing, and then moves along, unaffected. Whereas I still mentally return to the beautiful, perfectly controlled narration of The Remains of the Day all the time.
I perhaps have a new criteria for books, since I read so much, and that’s to ask: would it matter to me at all if I had skipped this one and read something else instead? In the case of Nocturnes, not really. I mean, I’d still rather have read this than one of the execrable books that made an impact by being appallingly awful, but that’s damning with faint praise, isn’t it?
159. Poem Strip, Dino Buzzati — Very ’60s, very Italian retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Very ’60s. If Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had come out 40-50 years ago, I could easily see someone in a marketing department somewhere deciding to call this work Orpheus and Eurydice and Boobs in an attempt to stay on trend.
It’s kind of fun, though, and it’s a neat example of a graphic novel before there were “graphic novels.” For example, there are large blocks of text, and there are pictures (mostly of boobs), but the two don’t really interact the way they might in a modern example of the genre.
I didn’t love this, but it’s an interesting historical artifact and useful if you need more Fellini-ish fun (or boobs) in your life.
160. The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, Max Brooks — These stories are lifted directly out of the back of the original Zombie Survival Guide, so don’t expect any new material here. However, they’re extremely fun in graphic novel form, and if it’s been a while since you read Brooks’ first zombie book, as it has for me, I think you’ll still find these a treat.
Total Reviews: 160/210
152. Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman — Enjoyable if slight. As usual, Gaiman’s use of mythological characters—in this case, those wacky old Norse Gods—is fantastic. I just wish his human character, Odd, had been less of a cypher. His journey didn’t feel as meaningful as it could have since he was mostly such a blank: more of a Shadow, alas, and less of a Richard Mayhew. (I love Richard, okay? I will totally arm wrestle over his superiority to all other slightly befuddled Neil Gaiman protagonists. RICHARD FOREVER.)
Ahem. Anyway, fun story; not quite great. WHEN ARE YOU WRITING ANOTHER ADULT NOVEL, NEIL?
153. Locke & Key: Head Games, Joe Hill — Continues from the excellent first volume (Welcome to Lovecraft) with a sophomore effort that’s equally imaginative and exciting. I shall be needing volume three immediately, kthx.
154. Pretty Dead, Francesca Lia Block — I read this because I was excited to see a Teenage Vampire Book in which the female half of the romantic pair has fangs. Block certainly goes in a different direction than most of the books in this genre—Pretty Dead is darker, and a whole lot sexier. But it's still not particularly good. There's nothing empowering or even all that interesting about Vampire Charlotte; she became a vampire at the teeth of a controlling douche who still rules a great deal of her thoughts, and she became rich by seducing an older guy and then waiting for him to die. (I'd make a cheap Anna Nicole Smith joke, but I guess that'd be tacky now. Rats.) And while Block can certainly spin some sensual prose, it feels meaningless to me. Careless. Just as this book's characters are careless: it's like reading Daisy Buchanan, Vampyre. (Stop with the Vamp Darcy idiocies, publishers, and have a go at that!) For example: toward the end of the book, a bunch of people die in an explosion that Charlotte has a chance to stop, but she—and the reader?—apparently isn't required to care because the main characters get their happy ending. Yeah. Guess what? I no longer care about you, dead girl.
155. Crazy for the Storm, Normal Ollestad — Interesting memoir about surviving a deadly plane crash and about growing up in Malibu Canyon in the ’60s and ’70s. I know the author a little (as well as several of the people referenced in the acknowledgments), so I feel a wee bit uncomfortable talking about it in too great detail, especially as the book contains rather more detail about the author’s penis than I really needed, considering the fact that I know the author a little. But it’s a compelling read. (The parts about the plane crash and Malibu Canyon, not the parts about the author’s penis.)
156. Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy — Excellent short story collection. I’m not a fan of open-ended, snippety short stories that don’t really go anywhere and lack resolution, so I was really impressed and pleased with how complete each of Meloy’s tales seems. Over and over again, she creates rich characters and puts them in complex situations, and the stories are all different, so the collection never starts to seem samey. Not to mention: is that a great title or what?
157. Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell — I knew I was going to like this book as soon as I got to the first funny, clever footnote. Few things win me over as wholly and easily as novels with entertaining footnotes. See: Good Omens, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and most of the Discworld books for further examples.
This book has great footnotes. It’s also got a doctor in witness protection on the run from the mob—and the medical parts are as fascinating and suspenseful as the mob bits. (The author is a doctor.) The mob aspects of the novel are interesting as well, and I am normally not a fan of mafia stories—The Godfather excepted. This mafia story, however, has a shark tank scene that seems like something out of a more realistic James Bond movie, not to mention an act of sheer badassery that would leave even Benton Fraser impressed. It’s a romp in the best sense of the word. A romp with footnotes!
158. Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro — I love Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day intensely, but I found this collection of five thematically interrelated short stories disappointing. They’re not badly written or anything, but they’re very plain and unexciting. They don’t build to anything, either each alone or all together. “Okay,” one thinks upon finishing, and then moves along, unaffected. Whereas I still mentally return to the beautiful, perfectly controlled narration of The Remains of the Day all the time.
I perhaps have a new criteria for books, since I read so much, and that’s to ask: would it matter to me at all if I had skipped this one and read something else instead? In the case of Nocturnes, not really. I mean, I’d still rather have read this than one of the execrable books that made an impact by being appallingly awful, but that’s damning with faint praise, isn’t it?
159. Poem Strip, Dino Buzzati — Very ’60s, very Italian retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Very ’60s. If Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had come out 40-50 years ago, I could easily see someone in a marketing department somewhere deciding to call this work Orpheus and Eurydice and Boobs in an attempt to stay on trend.
It’s kind of fun, though, and it’s a neat example of a graphic novel before there were “graphic novels.” For example, there are large blocks of text, and there are pictures (mostly of boobs), but the two don’t really interact the way they might in a modern example of the genre.
I didn’t love this, but it’s an interesting historical artifact and useful if you need more Fellini-ish fun (or boobs) in your life.
160. The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, Max Brooks — These stories are lifted directly out of the back of the original Zombie Survival Guide, so don’t expect any new material here. However, they’re extremely fun in graphic novel form, and if it’s been a while since you read Brooks’ first zombie book, as it has for me, I think you’ll still find these a treat.
Total Reviews: 160/210
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-08 12:14 pm (UTC)I WANT TO KNOW TOOO!!!
And Agree with you on the Richard Mayhew love. Oh Neverwhere, you are so awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-10 11:13 pm (UTC)