bookshelves of doom

Many, many lookalikes.

A great gallery of art used again and again (and, holy cow, again some more) on book covers.

Tillmon County Fire -- Pamela Ehrenberg

From the prologue:

I can look at this page, this news about the trial and all the background noise around it, and I can say that this is my life, and also the life of a lot of other young and old and church-going and non-church-going and hard-working and not-so-hard-working people who live in Tillmon County and places just like it.  It's my life, but it's their life too.  We're in this together, however we might feel about each other at any particular moment.  And remembering that makes me think, at least for a little while, that maybe I've found the point.

Tillmon County Fire is a collection of connected stories that describe, one after the other and in many voices, the lead up to and the aftermath of a fire in the community. 

The narrators of each story -- a young man who finds God at summer camp; a 17-year-old who doesn't think much of his non-interest in his girlfriend until he sets eyes on the new guy from New York; the girlfriend, who has troubles and dreams she's never shared with her distracted boyfriend; the new guy from New York; a trumpet player; his autistic twin brother; a pregnant girl who works in the hardware store, among others -- speak in clear, distinct voices (and different fonts) that, while separate and individual, form a chorus, even though they don't realize it themselves.

I loved the format, and I felt that the different fonts worked -- in some cases, it would have felt gimmicky, but not here.  The writing was too strong for that.  I always enjoy seeing the same setting and the same event from different perspectives, and Tillmon County Fire not only achieved that, but made it feel real. 

I did think that the Postscript detracted from the book.  It felt tacked-on and unnecessary.  I didn't feel that I needed the story of Aiden's early life, as his story and his actions during the trial made it very clear that, like everyone else, he's a complicated person:  not evil, not perfect.  The Postscript made it feel too easy, too pat -- that suddenly every bad decision he made could be somehow traced back to that event.  I felt like it lessened him somehow.

Overall, though, I enjoyed it very much -- I'll be looking for more from Pamela Ehrenberg, and I hope specifically that there's more short fiction in her writing future.

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Book source:  Cybils nominee; review copy from the publisher.

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Crossposted at Guys Lit Wire.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  How else will I ever buy an Oompa-Loompa?

Catching up: The Season, by Sarah MacLean

While my TBR piles are still towering over me, the To Be Written About piles are starting to give 'em a run for their money.  So I'm going to do some short responses -- I need to return a pile of them to the library before my co-worker calls me a deadbeat again.

The Season, by Sarah MacLean

This one and I didn't get along.  I was so very excited about it, because:  Regency era!  Romance!  Murder!  Mystery!

But...

I found that the only aspect of the book that suggested that it wasn't set in the modern day to me (other than the descriptions of the clothes and the settings) was that the characters spoke slightly formally.  The main character slouched on a couch (while wearing the dress for her debut), she rolled her eyes at her mother, the banter she exchanged with the menfolk was more akin to stuff I hear from the kids in the library than anything I'd imagine actually coming out of the mouth of a Regency Miss, and while I've read and enjoyed many-a-book starring a Young Lady Who Can Think Of One Million Things She'd Rather Do Than Get Married and read and enjoyed many-a-book starring a Young Lady Who Is More Modern Minded Than Her Times, I just couldn't believe in Lady Alexandra Stafford.  Let alone like her.  And the other characters felt like props.

It is extremely possible that I didn't give this one enough of a chance.  I didn't finish it, because my annoyance level was so very high.  But I am aware that many others loved it, so maybe my inherent crank is causing trouble again.

Huh.  At this rate, I'll be through my pile in no time.

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Book source:  ILLed from my local library.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask? Well, gosh.  How else will I ever fill my swimming pool with gold doubloons?

Things I Missed While I Was Sick, or, Things That Could Possibly Make Me Sick All Over Again.

So, I'm glad to be back.  I was sick sick sick sick sick for a long long long long long time.  So sick that I wished I was back at work.  Which is pretty sick.

Anyway, clearly I missed a whole lot while I was away from this Land of Wonder that we call the Internet.  I haven't even started getting caught up.

But I'm going to make a Bold Statement based on Nothing But Assumption and state that the A#1 Most Important thing I missed has to have been the Edward Cullen panties.

Now.  The first picture was scary enough, what with poor RPattz' brooding face centered squarely on one's frontal junkal area:

That, in itself, is clearly too too much.

But it gets worse.  The second picture made me want to take to my bed.  Again.  So peek at your own risk:

 

I just threw up.  And not just a little bit.  Thank goodness there are still barf buckets scattered throughout the house.

THANKFULLY, I scanned down through the comments at Best Week Ever (thanks for the link, Celia!) and discovered that these amazing pieces ARE NOT FOR SALE.  Rarely have I been so very relieved about something so very silly.  (The only thing that could top it at the moment is if Katie Holmes finally came to her senses and pushed Tom Cruise in front of a fast-moving steamroller.)

LESS THANKFULLY, I also found this link to an actual product (featured at everyone's new favorite site: Regretsy) in the comments.

I called it!

Two years ago, when I read Adam Selzer's How to Get Suspended and Influence People, I said that I wouldn't be surprised to see it get challenged.

Thank you, lady in Idaho, for making me right.

NBA finalists.

As I was on blog-world hiatus when the National Book Award finalists were announced, I wasn't sure if I was alone in thinking that the inclusion of David Small's Stitches on the Young People's list was surprising and a little bit annoying*.

So it was nice to see this blog post at NPR.

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*Not because there's anything remotely wrong with Stitches, of course.  But as it is on the YPL list, that means that a book that was actually published for Young People was cut to make room for it.  Which doesn't seem right.

My apologies...

...to anyone who had to put up with my Twitter freakout last night, which consisted of many tweets along these lines:

 

I blame Courtney Summers for recommending the Scariest Movie EVER:

Just so you know how completely pathetic I am:  I watched the trailer through my fingers.

Just so you know what a total jerkface my husband is:  after the movie was over, he went outside and tiptoed around to different windows, tap-tap-tapping them until I hid in the middle of the house where there are no windows.

Just so you know how I really felt about the movie:  I called my father to tell him that he HAD to go out and buy it, because it was utterly awesome and had great effects, good acting and a great storyline and because even though it made me so scared I thought I was going to barf, I adored it.  (Then I stayed on the phone with him until Josh got tired of waiting for me to walk by another window and came back inside.)

Thanks to MotherReader...

...we have quite a lot more information about the new FTC guidelines.

See GalleySmithfor a recap of the KidLitCon session with Mary Engle (Associate Director for Advertising Practices), as well as links to responses at other blogs.  More available at GalleyCat and PW.

Earworm.

This song:

Except, instead of the lyrics, I'm hearing the clucking from the Robot Chicken end theme. 

Yes.  I have problems, and I like to share them.

Never fear.

I'm still alive.

I've just been very busy:

A)  Reading for the Cybils.
B)  Working my way through the TBRT#2 submissions.

Also, I've been distracted by:

A)  That &%*$ D&D online game.
B)  A three-day party this past weekend that was literally the most amazingly debauched event I have ever witnessed.

Other factors:

A)  The lack of daylight.  I do most of my posting in the morning, and I have an incredibly hard time getting up when it is still dark out.  Daylight Savings kicks in soon (I think?), and that'll help.  (Unless it already did, and then I'll know that I REALLY have problems.)
B)  Overwhelm-ed-ness leading to procrastination.  I have a pile of 20+ books waiting to be written up sitting right behind my head.  I'm thinking I might just clear the decks with a mega-post about all of them.  Or most of them, at any rate.  Kind of like how every once in a while I need to delete everything in my RSS reader to start fresh.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has expressed concern or checked in with me via email!  All is well.

Gentlemen -- Michael Northrop

Until I saw this book cover up close, I thought the kid was wearing a hoodie.

But... nope.  It's a body bag.  Yowza.  Big points to the designer.  [Later:  Just found this post about the process behind creating the cover.  They definitely made the right call in changing it.]

Since I loved his voice so very much, I'll let Micheal introduce himself (this is from page two):

I started out in 9A, in case you're wondering, one down from honors.  I'd done OK on the test they made us all take back at the end of eighth grade.  Better than OK, but the classes didn't work out.  They said I wasn't "applying myself," and that's fair enough.  Then I threw Oscar Tully a serious beating for saying something he shouldn't've, and that was that, down to general in the middle of the third marking period.  I had no idea what was going on in G, and I didn't really feel like trying to figure it out.  Sophomore year started and I found myself in 10R.

Fine with me, that's where someone like me belongs--someone of my "pedigree," if you read me.  This should clue you in:  My first name is spelled wrong.  It's Micheal instead of Michael.  Mom or Dad, one of them dropped the ball on that one, probably Dad, in the hospital or wherever it is you fill out that paperwork.  Not that it matters; everyone calls me Mike.  Still, it's a bad way to start things out.

Micheal, Mixer, Tommy and Bones have been friends for a long time.  They know each other well.  So, when Tommy doesn't show up in his afternoon classes after throwing a desk in math, the others don't think much of it.  After all, it's likely that he's been suspended.

But then he doesn't show up the next day.  And he doesn't answer his phone.  And his mother doesn't know where he is.

That's when the three remaining boys start to think about what went on in English class that day.  And about what may have really happened to Tommy.

Short version:  Gentlemen gets a Hulk-sized double thumbs-up from me.  I'm totally in love with it and you really should run to your local library and snag it immediately.

Longer-but-still short version:  What, you don't believe me?  See above.  Yeesh.  Really.  Micheal is very bright, very perceptive and always believable.  His voice is fresh and distinct, clever in a way that feels new, gritty and hard-boiled in a way that feels true to his age, and darkly funny in a way that never comes off as flip or downplays the situation.  He spun the story out in a way that kept me guessing until he himself realized what had happened and what was going to happen, and I'm just totally in love.  Even after finishing the book, I find that I'm thinking of him as a real person.

It's an outstanding, excellent book, and I very much hope that Michael Northrup will have more to come for the YA audience.

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Book source:  ILLed from my local library.

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I read this book for the 2009 Cybils.  (It had been on my TBR list for a zillion years as well -- the nomination just got my rear in gear.)

Angry Management -- Chris Crutcher

I hate the cover art on this one.  I've been sitting here, looking at it, trying to come up with a less harsh way of saying that, but... no.  There isn't a less harsh way of saying it.  I.  Hate.  The.  Cover.  It looks to me like someone slapped it together in seven minutes, and I don't understand if the kid on the front is angry or dancing.  Or doing an angry dance. 

Not that an angry dance is a bad thing.

Anyway.  Don't judge a book, etc., etc.

Angry Management is a trio of novellas about characters from Chris Crutcher's previous books.  Some you'll remember (Sarah Byrnes), and some you very likely won't (Matt Miller, who literally got one line in Deadline). 

The stories are tied together loosely -- all of the characters are in Mr. Nak's (from Ironman) Anger Management group.  Each story begins with Mr. Nak's first impressions of the students:  Sarah Byrnes and Angus Bethune; Montana West and Trey Chase; Matt Miller and Marcus James.

I love Chris Crutcher.  I love Chris Crutcher's books.

I did not love Angry Management.

And I was surprised and disappointed at just how much I did not love Angry Management.

I felt, in the first story, that Angus and Sarah were defined by their pasts.  While I understand that to a great extent, Who You Are is something that is Formed By Your Past, I felt that I never got a sense of either of them OTHER THAN what was in their past.  A good amount of their dialogue felt stilted and unreal -- something very unusual in a Crutcher book -- and the getting-to-know-you portion of their conversation felt like a big infodump.  Because of all that, they both -- Sarah especially -- felt two-dimensional.  The story as a whole felt hurried and like a shallow treatment of characters who deserved better.

The second story felt like a retread of material in other books.  When I wrote about Deadline, I said that readers would recognize themes and character types, but that it felt right and comfortable and like a revisit.  And I said that while the author had previously written about those themes, he still found new ways of looking at them and new aspects to explore.  There is a difference between a retread and a revisit.  Chris Crutcher has told this story before, and he's told it better.  Again, the characters felt two-dimensional and the dialogue didn't feel real.  The antagonist wasn't just two-dimensional, he was one-dimensional.  And it felt preachy.  Which is a hard thing for me to take, even when I agree with what is being preached.

In the third story, pretty much everything I've already said applies, except, in addition, I never saw Marcus James as a person.  I saw him as a symbol.  And that didn't sit right with me.  Even more than in the previous story, I felt that this one came off as extremely preachy:  by the end of the story, I felt that none of the narrators were speaking in their own voices -- they were speaking in Chris Crutcher's.

I very much appreciate the idea that, as in real life, the stories and the realities of these characters haven't ended.  I just didn't feel that these stories did the characters, the author -- or that idea -- justice.

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Book source:  My local library.

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I read this book for the 2009 Cybils.  (Though, of course, I would have gotten to it eventually anyway.)

How much food do you have stockpiled?

Because today is the day that NASA will bomb the moon!  You can follow their progress at the NASA website.

Hell.  We have practically no canned goods.

At least we have a lot of firewood.

If you've read the Pfeffer books, you understand my fears.  GAH!!

If you haven't read Life As We Knew It or The Dead & The Gone, you probably think I've gone bananas.  (You should read them.  Then you can go bananas with the rest of us.)

[Sidenote:  I like typing the word 'bananas'.]

Lookalikes.

Flipping through the new S&S catalog, I spotted this cover:

Which reminded me of this cover:

So I Googled around and found that even with the change, my brain was right in making the connection.

Please, please, please let none of my stuff ever show up on this blog.

Via my sister-in-law, I give you:  REGRETSY.

As far as recent posts go, this (not for the faint of heart, also for mature audiences) is the winner.

I guarantee that you have never seen anything remotely similar.

And if you have, I would very much like to hear about it.

The flipside of Banned Books Week.

It brings "objectionable" books to the attention of those who would have them banned.

Be sure not to miss the comments.

Here's another brief (sensationalized) story (for which the writer clearly did little to no research -- the book list the teacher used for her Banned Books Week display was explained thusly:  "This book is banned in other school districts across the country on what's called a 'Banned Book List.'") about the situation, and in case you're wondering, it's all taking place at William Byrd High School* in Vinton, Virginia. 

Aaaand now I want to re-read Perks of Being a Wallflower.  But, no.  I MUST RESIST.  I need to stick to my All Cybils** All The Time plan for the next few months.

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*They get points because their mascot is a terrier.  They lose points for taking the books off of the library shelf before the challenge procedure is completed.  Unless that's part of their official challenge procedure.  Which is possible, albeit strange.

**Don't forget to nominate!

KRUEGER!!

Due to the utter awesomeness of Clancy Brown in this trailer, I have changed my mind about next year's Elm Street remake:

I mean, yeah, granted, Clancy Brown is always awesome.  But still.  Now I must see it.

Moments later:  Aaaand I now have a big ol' picture of CB on my work computer.  Which I'm sure that my co-workers will appreciate oh so very much.

Good thing I work in a library.

Because I want nothing to do with this FTC nonsense.

Don't forget...

...to nominate your 2008-9 favorites over at the Cybils website!

The Magicians -- Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater isn't a very happy person.  He's brilliant and well-off, his parents are nice enough, though vague and mostly absent.  His two best friends, James and Julia, are happily dating, though Quentin wishes he was the one dating Julia.   

The world is grey and cold and boring and predictable.  Secretly, he dreams of magic.  He daydreams about Fillory, wishes it was real.

Fillory is a Narnia-ish (very, very Narnia-ish) fantasy world described in a series of children's books originally published in the 1930s.  Most people Quentin's age left them behind years and years ago, but he didn't.  He still returns to them -- when he's bored (which is often), when he's upset (ditto), when he wants to escape (again, ditto).

Then, after a death at his Princeton interview leads to an encounter with a strange paramedic leads to an invitation to apply to Brakebills, a school in upstate New York that specializes in, you guessed, magic:

This was everything he'd always wanted, the break he'd given up on years ago.  It was right in front of him.  He was finally on the other side, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass.  He was going to sign the papers and he was going to be a motherfucking magician.  Or what the hell else was he going to do with his life?

There was much chatter about The Magicians when it came out this summer.  It was touted as "fantasy for grown-ups", Harry Potter in the real world, Harry Potter in college.  It was described as original and epic and ground-breaking.

That's a whole lot of hype to live up to.

Is the hype accurate?  Well, as always, it depends on who you talk to.  The people doing the hyping, obviously, would say yes.  The people giving it one-star reviews at Amazon, obviously, would say no.

My opinion lands somewhere in the middle.  It was, for sure, a book that kept me reading -- I happily read all 400 pages in an afternoon.  As in any other fantasy novel set in a secret corner of our world, I enjoyed discovering it with Quentin:

Quentin was pretty sure that if he stood very still for a few seconds everything would snap back to normal.  He wondered if he was undergoing some dire neurological event.

I enjoyed most of the nods to previous works -- I didn't, as some readers have, see it as derivative -- because Quentin is such a fan, much of the book read like a tribute to fantasy-that-came-before.  And I loved the fact that the students took ideas for their offensive spells from D&D.

My major personal difficulty with the book boiled down to this:  Quentin Coldwater is not very likable.  He's selfish and apathetic, never happy with what he has, even when what he has is exactly what he originally thought he wanted.  He's the personification of the-grass-is-always-greener.  I never doubted him as a character -- he seemed very real to me -- but I didn't like him.  But I'm not sure if I was supposedto like him.  If this was a book about Magic in the Real World, it stands to reason that the hero wouldn't just not be heroic -- he wouldn't be a hero.  And, ultimately, I didn't see him as one.  He was just a protagonist.  Which, really, made sense.

Oddly, I seem to have talked myself into liking it more than I did originally.  Actually, maybe appreciating it is a better description. 

I think that many readers who pick this one up expecting a Grown-Up Version of Harry Potter will be disappointed.  The similarities pretty much begin and end with: Unhappy kid gets accepted into School of Magic.  The Magiciansisn't about the plotting (which, especially towards the end, was pretty weak) or about the world-building.  It's a coming-of-age story (though I don't know if I really believe that Quentin has actually come of age by the end) about a self-absorbed, not-very-impressive, extremely angsty young man.

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Book source:  An ARC given to me by a library patron.

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Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

Good to know that Sesame Street is still teaching the essentials.

Like the correct usage of the word 'sycophant':

Hee hee hee.

My big confession.

I have developed a (possibly unhealthy) addiction to the D&D Online game.

I CANNOT STOP PLAYING.

On the one hand, my Paladin is cutting a swath through the kobold ranks (who, depending on how the day has gone, may or may not look a whole lot like certain library patrons and it's doing wonders for my mood)... but on the other, the game has seriously cut into my reading and blogging time.

So.  As with all of my little addictions, the early freakout will last for a little while and then I'll calm down and settle into a more reasonable schedule.

Until then, BRING ON THE *($()#&%#* KOBOLDS!

 

Wow.  Occasionally the truth hits home:  I am a huge, huge geek.

Last-minute reminder!

Today is the last day to submit to the December issue of TBRT.

That is all.

...

...

...

Tomorrow, I will explain why I have been so MIA this week.

That is really all.

More vulgarity discovered at the Leesburg Public Library.

The two mothers who so disliked The Bermudez Triangle and the Gossip Girl series have found many, many more books to be concerned about.

Due to the uproar over titles like John Green's Looking for Alaska and Louise Rennison's Startled by His Furry Shorts, Garret Freymann-Weyr's My Heartbeat and Sonya Sones' One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, the city commissioners of Leesburg voted 4-1 to (if I'm understanding the article correctly) split the young adult collection into a "high school"  young adult collection and an-unnamed-but-again-I-assume "younger" young adult collection.

John Green = Not Pleased.

I think it's odd that this is all going on during Banned Books Week and yet the story doesn't seem to have made it into the more mainstream news -- especially when it seems that there are some who are calling for the books in question to not just be moved, but pulled from the library altogether:

But Art Ayris, executive pastor at First Baptist Church of Leesburg, and Fechtel contend that moving all the high-school books is overkill and doesn't address the problem.

"If they move all the books, the indecent ones are still in with the decent ones and that's not accomplishing anything," Fechtel said.

So MOVING the books in question is overkill, but REMOVING the books in question is not?  I guess not, because the books that would be removed are indecent, at least according to the standards of the people raising the challenge.  So obviously everyone else in town must have those same standards.

I think that's what is being suggested here. 

[A few minutes later: 

But then this article makes it all even more complicated:  It sounds like the group isn't asking for the books to be removed altogether, but for them to be marked with a "Mature Audiences" sticker.  While the library seems comfortable enough with the Two YA Sections Compromise, they are not comfortable with a "MA" section:  because a split by age range wouldn't pass judgment on the content, while a "MA" section would. 

Conversely, the group of challengers wants a "MA" section for exactly that reason (I think), so that everything they deem to be vulgar would be found in one place*, and they also want to create a committee which would, going forward, decide what books would be relegated to the "MA" section.  WHEW.  I think I have it straight now.]

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*Which, one assumes (judging by my father's stories about using his childhood church's LIST OF MOVIES GOOD CATHOLICS MUST NEVER, EVER WATCH as a list of recommended viewing), would quickly become THE MOST POPULAR SECTION EVER.

More amazing Twilight merchandise.

I give you:

 

handpainted sneakers at Etsy!

(I've got to hand it to the artist -- she goes all out on these, decorating the boxes and including sparkly shoelaces and everything.  Holy cow.)

(via Beth)