Bookish Thoughts

"Louis, Louis, Louis. Still whining after all these years." That quote isn't actually from the book. It's Lestat's final line in the 1994 movie adaptation. But, damn, is it an appropriate summation of this book. Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire was a genre changer. It was the first mainstream media that took a sympathetic view towards vampires. They're just lonely immortals at the top of the food chain who spend their free time reading poetry, visiting the opera, and looking for other vampires to share eternity with. Not all the different from you or me. This also introduced a dynamic that has been repeated in vampire literature ever since. We get Louis, the brooding brunette who doesn't want to kill people; Lestat, the partying blonde who's just out to have a good time and who cares about the body count; and Claudia, the super special girl that they're both obsessed with. This dynamic has gotten a ton of mileage from Bu...

No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace A Thread of Grace is about Jewish refugees in Northern Italy during World War II. But like Mary Doria Russell's other books, it's about so much more than that. Tapestry is a good word to describe this book. There are a lot of characters, and their stories weave together to paint a picture of the last two years of WWII. The number of characters is a bit overwhelming at the beginning, but Russell is so good at creating distinct people that it doesn't take too long to begin sorting them out. There's also a list at the beginning of the book that outlines the characters, their aliases, and their basic relationships. The list is helpful, though I accidentally spoiled myself for a plot point via one of the descriptive aliases. The book tells the amazingly true story of many Italians' simple refusal to report on their Jewish friends, family, and neighbors. The book is d...

The Hobbit is a pretty awesome introduction to JJR Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It's a fun children's book with danger and adventure and cool new creatures. It's definitely lighter and less dense that The Lord of the Rings , but gets you interested in this world and what else is going on. The chapters in the first half of the book follow a fairly basic formula. Bilbo and the dwarves meet some new creature on their journey to the Lonely Mountain. These creatures include fairly benign beings like the elves, eagles, and Beorn. There are also villains, like the trolls, orcs, spiders, and Gollum. Over the course of the book, Bilbo become more confident in his skills as he goes from hiding from the trolls to defeating the spiders and saving all his friends. The back half of the book is more concerned with Smaug, whose defeat Bilbo contributes to but isn't responsible for. Then there's a battle over who gets to keep the treasure and finally Bilbo gets to go...

In my opinion, George Orwell's 1984 is incredibly overrated. Yes, there are some interesting political ideas. Yes, it's important to read this book and be on guard against a society like the one portrayed happening. Yes, we still refer back to this book constantly when we talk about things like Big Borther, Newspeak, and Double Think. But the characters are boring and hard to sympathize with and the plot is barely there. Seriously, thirty pages of this book was devoted to Goldstein's analysis of Oceana. As dry as it was, it was probably the point of the entire book. There were a couple of things that stood out as interesting. One was the presentation of Big Brother and Goldstein, which set them up in a God/Satan dynamic. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counterrevolutio...

About fifty pages into The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , Douglas Adam's sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , I began to have the feeling that I'd read it before. The scene of Zaphod climbing down the building which stuck in the ground at a 45 degree angle was eerily familiar. I already knew that the end of the universe was a temporal reference, not a spatial one, but I chalked that up to probably being a Futurama episode I'd half-forgotten. By the time Arthur and Ford arrived on Earth 20,000 years before it will have been blown up, I knew I'd already read this book. But it had taken me the entire book to reach that conclusion. Even though I just finished this book, those are still the only three details that are sticking in my mind. It's not that this book is bad. It was entertaining. But it was like a mediocre episode of Futurama. Something I'm bound to forget the details of because I'm simply not paying close enough...

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series for several years now. I actually read my first Discworld novel during my freshman year of college. But then I stopped taking every single class pass/fail and ran out of time to read anything I was being graded on. I didn't get back to the series until after graduation and have spent the last four years occasionally visiting the Discworld. I've read the first 26 (of 39) novels, without seeing much artwork. There aren't any maps included in the books (only an admonishment that you can't map a sense of humor). The covers of the editions I'm reading are fairly abstract. And I haven't sought out the movies or graphic novels. The world existed entirely in my imagination, and I was happy to let it. Then The Last Hero arrived in the mail and I was floored. The book is huge (10.8" x 9.2", according to Amazon) and fully illustrated. The illustrations, by Paul Kidby, are amazing. They...

The Passage , by Justin Cronin, is a beast of a book.  It's a sprawling, epic story told in 766 pages. And when I was halfway through it, I learned that it's only the first novel in a planned trilogy. Which...I can see where the story is going in the next book. I definitely think there's enough plot left to keep things interesting for two more books. But the last thing I need right now is another epic series. So, The Passage . The only thing I knew when I started it was that it was about vampires. I mentioned this to my boyfriend's mom when she loaned it to me, and she was quick to say that they aren't really vampires. They don't have a lot of the classic "vampire" characteristics. But the thing is, every vampire legend picks and chooses the bits of the legend they want to use. Bram Stoker's vampires couldn't cross running water and had to sleep in the soil of their homeland. Anne Rice's vampires absolutely could not change t...

I first read Slaughterhouse Five for an assignment in high school. Afterwards, the only parts that stuck with me were the time travel and the aliens. I was actually confused the first time I saw it referred to as an anti-war book, because I honestly didn't remember there being anything about war in it at all. The fact that I read it as part of a literature on war assignment didn't quite register with me. Most of the other kids read  Catch-22  or  The Things They Carried  or  A Farewell to Arms . My teacher actually recommended that I read  Slaughterhouse Five ; I don't think it was on the approved reading list. So I read it, and I do remember liking it. Some of the philosophical musings about time and free will stuck with me, even if the war bits didn't. The only part of the book that I really remembered was this passage describing Billy's limited perspective of time: The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were lookin...

A Feast For Crows requires a bit of a shift in expectations. The first three books largely focused on the Starks and Lannisters. Sure, there were Dany chapters that took us across the Narrow Sea and Jon Snow chapters on the Wall and north of it. We occasionally got to see what Stannis was up to in the second and third books; although the Baratheon family is pretty firmly entwined with both the Starks and the Lannisters via the late King Robert. The second book also shed a bit of light on Theon Greyjoy. But again, Theon was so tied to the Starks that this hardly seemed like a major departure. This all changes in the fourth book, when the world doubles in size while simultaneously narrowing in scope. Over half of the book is dedicated to three characters: Cersei, Jaime, and Brienne. Arya, Sansa, and Sam each get a few chapters, but several key characters are missing (Tyrion, Bran, and Jon). Instead, GRRM introduces two new kingdoms with all new casts of characters and co...

Sometimes I think Neil Gaiman is a bit too clever for his own good. Having read Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book , Gaiman's Graveyard Book makes a lot more sense. And with The Jungle Book to compare to, I find that I'm liking The Graveyard Book a lot more. Both stories follow a young boy being brought up in extraordinary circumstances. Mowgli is raised by wolves, with a panther and a bear to teach him. Bod is raised by ghosts and receives similar tutelage from a vampire and a werewolf. Mowgli is plagued by the tiger, Shere Khan, who has been trying to kill him since he was a baby; Bod has a similar relationship with the man Jack. The Graveyard Book is more linear than The Jungle Book . It also sticks with (what I assumed to be) the main character for longer. The entirety of The Graveyard Boo k is about Bod, but Mowgli is only featured in the first three of The Jungle Book's seven chapters. That actually confused me a great deal, and I spent most of the ...

The Graveyard Book is cute. It's a children's book written by Nail Gaiman, and it's definitely a children's book. The plot is barely there and doesn't matter nearly as much as the story of Bod, told in a series of vignettes. Nobody "Bod" Owens' family was murdered when he was a year old. Somehow he escaped and toddled up to the graveyard where the ghosts adopted him and kept him safe from this man who was still trying to kill him. From there we meet the first living friend Bod makes, watch him get kidnapped by ghouls, see him befriend the ghost of a witch and obtain a headstone for her unmarked grave. Bod participates in the Danse Macabre. He attends school for a short time, but eventually has to drop out because he's drawing too much attention to himself and the man who killed his family is still out there trying to finish the job. In the final chapter, all of these stories feed into the climactic battle between Bod and the man ...

Terry Pratchett's 26th Discworld novel, Thief of Time , has almost the same plot as one of my favorite episodes of Angel. Sort of. It's the end of the world (this happens almost as much on the Discworld as it does in the Buffyverse). This time, it happens to be caused by a clock that freezes time. So once it starts to tick, it never will again, and neither will any other clock. Everyone will be be stuck in a single moment that lasts forever. The details are different, but the stories are similar enough that I went to look up which one came out first. It turns out both were released in 2001, so this is a bit like Leibniz and Newton coming up with calculus at the same time. Okay, maybe this plot isn't quite as genius as calculus. But it's certainly enjoyable. Time paradoxes and apocalypses are always fun. This is definitely one of my favorite Discworld novels so far. Of course, the Death books tend to be among my favorite so there's no real surprise...

In the climax of Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass , the final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, two twelve year olds save the world by having sex and declaring their undying love for each other. This is something that I do not like. I find it weird and uncomfortable and it keeps me from re-reading this book. I probably would have continued to ignore it, if not for the Mark Reads project, though it is nice to reaffirm my own view of this book. It's a shame, because there's a lot about The Amber Spyglass that I really like.Dr. Mary Malone is a great character. The mulefa and their world are endlessly fascinating. I love all the thought and detail that goes into this completely alternate evolutionary chain. Lyra and Will's journey through the underworld is great and manages to bring some Greek mythology into play with all the Christian mythology that dominates the trilogy. Unfortunately, as interesting as the bulk of the book is, the ending is e...

Who doesn't love The Phantom Tollbooth ? People who've never read it, that's who. The plot is fairly simple. Milo is a chronically bored young boy who can't find anything worth being interested in the world around him. One day, a mysterious tollbooth arrives in his room. With nothing better to do, he constructs it and drives through. He quickly finds himself beyond expectations, journeying through Dictionopolis (where he learns the importance of words) and Digitopolis (where he learns about numbers). He also makes stops in the Valley of Sound and the Forest of Sight. Eventually he and his newfound friends, Tock the Watchdog and the Humbug, brave the Mountains of Ignorance to rescue the Princesses Rhyme and Reason and restore peace to the realm. I first read this book for school in the sixth grade for a school assignment. It's one of those books where the little details just sort of stick with you. Like the dodecahedron, or the Giant/Dwarf/Fat Man/Th...

I've slowed down a lot in my read of these books. I think that by reading slower I'm missing less. I have time to stop and think about plot developments, theorize about what might happen, and make all the connections that I missed in the first book. I'm enjoying my slower pace. Of course it also means that by the time I finish one of these books I forget what happened at the beginning. The stories start to bleed together. So here's a list of the things I wanted to talk about from this book. Though I probably missed several. Sansa's Wedding Who'd have known that Sansa's wedding to Tyrion would end up being one of the happier ones in the book? It took me completely by surprise. Still, I think that if they'd communicated just a bit better, they really could have been happy together. Or happier than they were anyway. They had more in common than Sansa ever realized. I definitely get where she's coming from - a thirteen year old girl mar...

In preparation for my vacation in the Adirondacks, Boyfriend had me read Isaac Asimov's (abridged) autobiography, It's Been a Good Life . Apparently the owner of the house we stayed at actually knew Asimov, though I didn't end up getting a chance to talk with him about how awesome that must have been. So I read this book, which was edited down by Asimov's second wife, Janet Jeppson. Boyfriend had told me that it was a bit like Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman , but with less science. And I did find that to be the case. It was a bunch of vignette's placed in loosely chronological order. Asimov discusses his atheism and humanism, which are points of view I agree with. He talks about how much he writes, which just blew me away. There's a line towards the end where says, "In those six years [since his heart attack], I had published about ninety books." The man wrote constantly, and he wrote everything. Wikipedia  mentions that his work ...

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret Terry Pratchett writes excellent vacation books. The Discworld novels are fun, funny, and light. They're quick and easy to read, but don't require too much thought. And, since Pratchett puts breaks in the text every few pages instead of dividing the stories into chapters, they're easy to consume in any size chunk you want. So whether I have an hour to hang out on the hammock, or five minutes while we're waiting for everyone to gather in the kitchen, I can dive right into a Discworld novel and not worry too much about getting interrupted in the middle of the action. The Truth  deals with the invention of the newspaper in Ankh-Morpork. William De Worde has been sending out a weekly, handwritten newsletter to a few nobles around the city who are willing to pay $5 an issue to keep up to date on the goings on of Ankh-Morpork. But when the dwarfs invent a printing press, William quickly finds out that he can print his newsletter ...

Comic book super heroes are everywhere. I never read comic books growing up, but I definitely knew who Batman and Superman were. I knew the origin stories, the costumes, the main villains. And I learned most of it by osmosis. There was always some sort of Batman cartoon on TV, along with those wonderfully cheesy movies from the 90s. And I loved Smallville in high school, though I didn't make it through all ten seasons. The heroes were larger than life. The details ultimately didn't matter that much. All that really mattered was that Bruce Wayne dressed up as a bat with high tech gadgets and saved Gotham City from the likes of The Riddler and Two-Face. Or Clark Kent took off his glasses and put his underwear on the outside and saved Metropolis from Lex Luthor while seducing Lois Lane. Or Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider and, um, liked redheads? I know less about Spiderman. Of the classic superheroes, Batman is my favorite. It may be because I was exp...

I view American Gods  as a summer book. Most of it takes place in the winter, but I always seem to read it in the middle of summer, when the days are hot and endless. The first time I read it was shortly after my 18th birthday, in those long, lazy days between high school and college, swinging in the hammock my dad no longer owns. The last time was shortly after I moved to Virginia, in the aimless days between accepting a position at a new company and actually starting work. I'm sure I read it, or at least parts of it, other times in the middle there. This time, the days are long and hot, but they are filled with work and other life stuff. The book still transports me to those endless summer days that are mostly a thing of the past now. I wonder, when they adapt the story for HBO, how the new gods will change. Will Netflix have usurped Television, or will she just be another aspect of the same god? Will Apple, Google, and Microsoft be brothers, constantly bicke...

This is probably my favorite movie of all time. It took me far too long to actually get around to reading the book. I kind of didn't want to ruin the experience of the movie by finding out that book was even better. It turns out that the book is better, but the movie is a pretty damn good adaptation. I bought the 30th anniversary edition of The Princess Bride , which included a couple of extra introductions. These were fun to read, partially because it felt a bit like I was stripping back layers of time, and partially because William Goldman maintains that he simply abridged S. Morgenstern's classic work, which it turns out is a historical account of certain events in Florin. Goldman talks about going to the Florin history museum with his grandson, seeing Buttercup's wedding dress and Inigo Montoya's sword. He notes all the little kids, gathered around the sword, repeating that infamous line to themselves over and over. He also talks about the sequel to T...

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays. So says Arthur Dent, moments before the Earth is destroyed to make way for a pan-galactic bypass. Normally that would happen at the end of a tragic drama, not the beginning of a comedy. Though I do remember one of my high school English teachers explaining that a tragedy starts with everyone happy and ends with everyone unhappy or dead. A comedy is the opposite story progression. So from that view, it makes sense to start a comedy with the destruction of the world. Things can only get better form here. At least they can't get any worse. Probably. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  is hilarious, but everyone says that. This is my second time reading it, though I've seen the movie a few times. This time through, I was surprised by just how quick of a read it is. I think it took roughly the same time to read this book as it would have to watch the movie. Which means that I'll probably be re...

A Clash of Kings is the second book in George R R Martin's epic A Song of Ice and Fire series.  It opens with the appearance of a bright red comet in the sky that is visible even by day. The first several chapters deal with the reactions of various characters to the comet. Everyone has a different interpretation, but they all believe it to be directly related to them. We humans are pretty self-centered. I thought this was a nice way to check in with each character and remember who all the major players are. The book mostly deals with all the various wars going on. Robb kills a lesser Lannister by surprising him, but has yet to meet the main army in battle. Renly's battle with Stannis is aborted by Renly's untimely death. Stannis then takes Storm's End just as quickly and marches on Kings Landing. This battle is the climax of the book and pits Tyrion's wits against Stannis', with Tywin and Littlefinger ultimately saving the day. Sansa gets out of...

The Subtle Knife is the second book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Instead of picking up where The Golden Compass left off, this book opens in an entirely different world and introduces the character of Will Parry, who will eventually be the Adam to Lyra's Eve. In all honesty, I don't like this book as much as The Golden Compass . Instead of an exhilarating adventure story, Pullman starts to delve into his philosophy. It comes off as a bit preachy. Lord Asriel's ultimate goal is revealed: he's going to kill God.  The problem is that most of the characters don't really question this. Mrs. Coulter, resident bad guy, is trying to stop Asriel and gain power for herself through the church/Magisterium. But nearly every other sympathetic character is in complete agreement that God needs to die. Pullman reveals that, in his world, it was Lucifer and his rebel angels who tempted Eve with the apple, and that this was a good thing. This ...

The Golden Compass is the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. While the trilogy in it's entirety is fairly controversial due to it's negative portrayal of the church, this theme doesn't really become apparent until the end of the first book. Instead, The Golden Compass is at heart an adventure tale. It follows eleven-year-old Lyra Belacqua as she journeys north to save her best friend, Roger, from the Gobblers. The Gobblers have been kidnapping children for their own nefarious purposes. The Golden Compass takes place in a world that is similar to ours, but also incredibly different. The first and most dramatic difference is that a person's soul actually manifests as an animal companion known as a daemon. There are more subtle etymological and historical differences. For example, in this book John Calvin became pope and then ultimately disbanded the papacy in favor of a board of officials known as The Magisterium. The church ...

I was so excited to start this book. I love Eric after he loses all his memories, not to mention the fact that he and Sookie finally get together. Charlaine Harris successfully weaves two separate plots together in a non-jarring way, by using Jason's disappearance as a red herring. Unfortunately, the cracks are starting to show. Though Harris is really good at coming up with an interesting story, she's not so great at remembering what she's already written. The reviews I've read about her new book complain that it's full of inconsistencies with the rest of the series and that she seems to flat out ignore her own previous writing. Or maybe it's just a really shabby attempt to retcon the series so she can take it where she wants it to go. Even this early in the series, it seems that she can't be bothered to maintain the details of the world she's created. Here's a nit-picky list of the facts that Charlaine Harris can't keep straight. ...

In which... Eric cuddles with Sookie We meet Alcide Sookie and Alcide have breakfast and play scrabble. There's sexual tension, but no sex Sookie and Alcide dispose of a corpse together Alcide's ex-girlfriend tries to kill Sookie Sookie gets staked Eric is hot Sookie and Eric have friendship and sexual tension. They almost have sex but Elvis Bubba interrupts them Seriously, why isn't Bubba in True Blood ? He's awesome Sookie stakes her first vampire Sookie rescues Bill from torture and imprisonment In return, Bill rapes and nearly kills Sookie Eric saves Sookie (again) Sookie and Bill break up! Eric pays to have Sookie's driveway re-graveled, because he's thoughtful like that Man I am so glad that relationship is over. I know I'm biased, but this is my blog. I can be whatever I want. Once again, this book is a lot of fun. True Blood takes this story to the extremes of ridiculous. But it basically boils down to a bunch of hot guys who w...

Living Dead in Dallas has an interesting structure. There are two basic plots, an A plot and a B plot. But instead of being interwoven, they get chopped up. The first two chapters deal with the first half of the B plot. This is then completely forgotten as the A plot takes over most of the book. After the A plot wraps up, we get a few chapters to segue back into the B plot and tie off some loose ends. I guess it works? It feels a little disjointed, though. In the main plot, Sookie is off to Dallas to try and discover the whereabouts of a missing vampire named Farrel. It turns out he has been kidnapped by the Fellowship of the Sun church who want to sacrifice him in order to show their congregation the power of Jesus. Another vampire, Godfrey, is in cahoots with the church. He wants to die, to atone for his sins. Apparently he believes that God will even forgive 1000 years of child molestation and murder if he just asks Him to. I guess, technically, that is how it works...

This is my second time through the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm hoping to get through the first four before the 4th season of True Blood premieres. Given that the premiere is still several weeks away and it only takes a couple of days to read each of these books, that shouldn't be a problem. I got into these books because of the HBO series. I've been obsessed with vampires since I started watching Buffy in 6th grade. My mom fed this obsession with Anne Rice novels and old movies. The first silent film I ever saw was Nosferatu, which we rented because Eddie Izzard was in the modern spoof of it. Also classic vampires. So when True Blood premiered the summer after college when I was unemployed, I had to start watching. And when I found a box set of the first nine books on sale for $27 I couldn't not buy it. The first season of the show stays much closer to the books than any of the other seasons. I maintain that the books are far better. To be fair, I al...

Another Discworld novel! This one followed Captain Sam Vimes and The City Watch on a diplomatic mission to Uberwald where the werewolves are attempting to start a war among the dwarves. They steal the ceremonial throne just before the coronation of the new king with plans to hold it hostage unless the dwarves agree to elect a  different king, one who would deny dwarfdom to the more liberal dwarves with modern thoughts about gender and such. This was a fun detective novel with lots of twists and turns. I figured out the mystery fairly quickly, but it was still lots of fun to read. I've noticed this more and more with Terry Pratchett.  If I'm familiar with the source material (vampires, rock music, or fairy tales), then I catch on to a lot of the early clues and figure out the endgame pretty close to the beginning of the book. If I'm less familiar, then I miss the jokes and clues and the resolution of the novel comes as more of a surprise. But I like the ones ...

I first learned of John Green when I came across this quote "...because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'." There's also this one: Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' How fantastically true are these quotes? (an...