Tag: books

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted September 15, 2015 by Nicky in General / 33 Comments

This week’s theme from The Broke and the Bookish is… a freebie! So I’ve decided to tell you about my ten weird bookish habits/facts.

  1. If I’m going to stop reading mid chapter, it has to be at a scene break, or the end of the first paragraph on a page.
  2. The first paragraph on the page is not the right place to stop if it fills more than half the page.
  3. I don’t like stopping on odd-numbered chapters.
  4. I mark two chapters ahead with a bookmark. Sometimes there are five or six bookmarks in the book, all of them for points I haven’t reached yet.
  5. I like to whisper the words to myself. I’m synaesthetic, so it adds an extra layer for me. The mouth-feel/taste of some words is just great — like “steps” and “stepped” and “crept” and “slipped” and…
  6. I like reading statistics. But if I can’t have ’em accurate, I get sulky and won’t collect them anymore. So if I’m reading a book that I have in dead tree and ebook, I have to read one copy or the other. For the statistics.
  7. I have the Kobo Reading Life badges for literally every time of day, which requires reading five times in each time period. I have literally read around the clock five times minimum with my Kobo.
  8. I fidget while I read. Favourite fidget point, ever since I was tiny, has always been my stuffed hippo’s ears. She is on her second or third set of replacement ears… And she is a very well-read hippo.
  9. I read standing up sometimes. I have a standing desk, and I’m also allowed to read during my volunteering shift, sooooo…
  10. My teddies have a hammock above my bunk bed, at my parents’ house. They share it with books every night, just in case I wake up and need to read.

Anyone? Just me?

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Review – Blood Bound

Posted September 14, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Blood Bound by Patricia BriggsBlood Bound, Patricia Briggs

Okay, this review on Goodreads kind of sums up some of the problems I’m having. All the super-werewolf-dominance stuff is getting on my nerves, partly because these dynamics are not true of actual wolves in the wild (it’s based on an understanding of wolf social behaviour in captivity), and I am noticing that Mercy’s not a fan of other female characters (at least ones that might be rivals; Jesse, as the daughter of her love interest, is okay) because they’re all submissive or concerned with their appearance or whatever. (Though to be fair, this book does have a few moments of understanding between Mercy and Honey.)

But… it’s still kind of fun anyway, if you keep in mind that yeah, it’s heavy on the tropes. The mystery pulls us deeper into vampire lore and politics, for this book, which is quite fun. I have had enough of the love triangle… quadrilateral… thing, but I sort of knew I was signing on for it with these books. I will be quite interested to see how Mercy and Adam negotiate the issue of dominance between them; it could end up being quite an interesting dynamic, and I like that Adam is conscious of it and willing to work on it. We’ll see how that goes in the next book or two, I guess.

We’re also getting more development of what Mercy is capable of, and she does start being more active and less inclined to let the wolves tell her what to do. It is cool that she works within a team, but I wish they didn’t hold her back so much.

Oh, and I love Warren and Kyle, and there needs to be 100% more of them.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Posted September 13, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Cover of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. ValenteThe Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente

The whimsical nature of this is classically Valente; you can tell it was written by her, if you’re at all used to her style, but the style is less pronounced — it requires less concentration to be rewarding, to be enchanting. Which, given that it’s essentially a young adult book, makes sense. It’s still gorgeous, but more like cream and less like treacle.

It’s exactly as charming as the cover copy suggests. There’s a Wyvern who may or may not be the son of a library, there’s wild herds of bicycles, there’s witchery and magic and strange transformations. It’s Fairyland, as dangerous and bewitching as it should be, and not saccharine-sweet at all. It has a bit of the same tone as The Hobbit, with a definite narrator who has a personality and is telling the story direct to you, with the same lightness of touch (and much less moralising than, say, C.S. Lewis). I really like it when people are clever with their narrators, and this definitely worked for me.

There are, of course, deliberate parallels to folklore, but also to classic fantasy fiction — Narnia in particular, and it’s interesting that the main character of Fairyland has a father who is away at war, and so has that war background. Shades of the Pevensies, a little. And the antagonist’s issues, well, they seemed to me a direct commentary on the disappointments of leaving Narnia, never to return.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Philosopher Kings

Posted September 12, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of The Philosopher Kings by Jo WaltonThe Philosopher Kings, Jo Walton
Received to review via Netgalley

I should probably additionally note before I write this review that I consider Jo a friend, but I was a fan of her writing first. Actually, surprisingly, I have pretty mixed feelings about this one. It’s surprising to me, anyway — but everyone seems to connect to different books even just among Jo’s bibliography, because she’s written such a range of things. Only a little while ago I was talking about how strongly I connected with The King’s Peace/The King’s Name, which my friend Bun wasn’t nearly as enthused about.

I do like this trilogy, and I’m curious to see what the final book does with this set-up. I love the whole idea of it, and it makes me want to have Sokratic debates with everyone (in which case my mother would probably dearly wish to be able to turn me into a gadfly). I’d love to know my metal, I’d love to get the education that they have in the Just City. And I love the characters, the way everyone is learning, the way nearly everyone has subtleties and can surprise you.

My main problems with this book were to do with the pacing and one particular character. As the book starts, there’s a major drive to do a particular thing. That’s resolved by 70% of the way through, maybe even a little before, and so the rest of the book had the curious feel of being an epilogue. The emotional drive of the story, the whole tone of it, just changes — and yet then there was another climactic moment in the last 10%, after I was expecting it to end, and this one really was a gamechanger.

As for the character, I felt like I didn’t understand him anymore. Up to that point, I had understood him, and even half-sympathised, but there was a sudden moment when he felt less like the character I ‘knew’ from reading The Just City, and simply made up of the worst parts of that person, magnified. And I didn’t really see where the change came in — the problem being, of course, that none of the narrators saw him for years between The Just City and this book. It just didn’t quite ring true, for me, like there was a step missing.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading The Philosopher Kings very much, and will deeply enjoy talking about it and debating about it with my partner and anyone else who wants to.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Scar

Posted September 11, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Cover of The Scar by China MiévilleThe Scar, China Miéville
Originally reviewed 1st May, 2009

I’m glad I was already familiar with China Miéville’s work before I read The Scar. I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn’t known, to some extent, what to expect. The Scar is set in the same universe as Perdido Street Station, and has links with it, although it is not set in the same city. The prose is similar, very rich and dense, and the world-building is just as intense. It can be a little hard to get into: I remember with the first book that I found myself wondering what the main plot was going to be because what was there didn’t seem big enough. I was less dubious about The Scar, and wasn’t exactly surprised by the way the plot unfolded and unfolded and got bigger and bigger.

Which isn’t to say I knew where it was going, because while there were some things I expected and some things other people mentioned helped connect some dots, the end was still a shock to me. A good kind of shock, the “oh, that’s what’s going on, now everything suddenly makes sense” kind of shock, but still a shock. It’s hard to articulate what I felt about it because when I got to the end, I sat down to try and talk in a discussion thread about it and couldn’t summon up the words. I loved it, really, the way everything comes together, and the way everyone takes their place in the scheme of things and all the characters’ purposes make sense.

Overall, I loved the descriptions of the city. Miéville is really damn good at building up pictures like that, making you see it vividly, making you know how it works. I think I remarked in my review of Perdido Street Station that the city itself seems like a character, and the plot more like a vehicle to explore it — or if I didn’t, I should’ve. I felt this less in The Scar, but Armada is still a sort of character of its own.

Speaking of characters, The Scar has a lot of interesting ones. I’m really pleased that some Remade, who were more on the outskirts of Perdido Street Station, were closer to the heart of this book. Tanner Sack is an awesome character, I think — not too complicated in his thinking, but good and loyal. His slow transformation to become more of a sea-creature is really, really interesting to read about, and he was one of the few characters I wasn’t ambivalent about. Shekel was another, of course. I ended up liking the Brucolac more than I expected to, given that he’s a vampire and quite scary. Uther Doul is another fascinating character, and it’s amazing how much of a part he plays in the end. I didn’t like Silas at any point, so I was quite unsurprised by what he was doing, but Doul was more of a surprise. There’s a lot of manipulating going on in this book, and it amazes me how intricate it gets while still making sense.

Bellis herself, I didn’t feel much about either way. She’s rather unremarkable, really, except in being at the right (or wrong) place at the right time.

The Lovers were one of my favourite things about the book. The story surrounding them, about the scars, is intense and intriguing, and I was very drawn to the concept. Not so much to the characters, but definitely to the concept. I was actually sad when they parted because they were such a strong symbol.

I feel like I haven’t even managed to touch on the things that fascinate me about this book. It’s rich and dense, the characters are for the most part interesting and powerful. The ending is a wonderful culmination of all the threads, all the little details, and I love it. The world-building is wonderful. One of the things I like best about it is that there isn’t even any attempt to explain their science and make it like our science. It just is, but it’s not magic, it’s still science.

There are some amazing quotes, too. The ones that stuck out to me most are both related to Tanner:

-“A scar is not an injury, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After an injury, a scar is what makes you whole.”

-“In time, in time they tell me, I’ll not feel so bad. I don’t want time to heal me. There’s a reason I’m like this.
I want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won’t smooth you away.
I can’t say goodbye.”

I think those are amazing and lovely, too.

In conclusion, I think The Scar is well worth reading. If you can’t get into it because of all the denseness, persevere. I definitely found it worth it. I liked The Scar better than Perdido Street Station, but that might also have been because I was more prepared for it.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – In A Glass Darkly

Posted September 10, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of In A Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le FanuIn A Glass Darkly, Sheridan Le Fanu

I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, so hurrah that I finally got round to it. It’s a classic of gothic/horror stories, though to the jaded modern eye, it might not be that creepy at all. Of the stories, I liked ‘Carmilla’ and ‘The Room in the Dragon Volant’ the most — the mystery in the latter spun out satisfyingly, even if I did sort of guess how it would end. ‘Carmilla’ is mostly famous, I think, because it’s an early vampire story and because there’s a lot of homoerotic content. It’s not the most gripping reading, and the ending is pretty anti-climatic: there’s no real confrontation, but quite a tame denouement with a fairly toothless (ha) vampire.

Le Fanu was good at that sense of unease/uncanniness stuff, even if it seems like weak (or green? the jokes never stop in this review) tea now. The frame story about the Doctor seemed a little pointless to me, but I think it was probably written as a way to make it a little more creepy — as if these stories were real and collected by a real person because of their topics. I’ve always thought it a pretty good device, ever since Animorphs used to give me that moment of doubt as a kid.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Art Therapy Colouring Book

Posted September 9, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of The Art Therapy Colouring BookThe Art Therapy Colouring Book, Richard Merritt, Hannah Davies, Cindy Wilde

This book has high quality pages, so you can definitely use pens, and there are some lovely designs. They tend to be more finicky — lots of little sections to pen in, rather than big areas to colour — which may or may not suit you. The thing I think is most offputting about this book is that most of the pages are already partly coloured. I’m doing the fox from the front cover, for instance, and it comes with a coloured background and some sections of the head already coloured. Normally, I’m one of those creatures who prefers to colour in the lines and with the colours of nature, so I was a little hesitant about my rainbow fox. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to just colour something in differently, and see what it looks like as a complete picture — you might consider the already coloured parts of the pictures to be a sort of challenge to get really creative!

The last third of the book is for ‘doodling’, though there’s some scope for colouring, too. I was less interested in this stuff, and don’t know if I’ll really make use of it. The whole point of colouring books, for me, is that my dubious drawing skills don’t come into it.

Still, high quality book, and some of the multicolour designs come out looking surprisingly good, if you want to try something different.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Built By Animals

Posted September 8, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Built by Animals by HansellBuilt By Animals, Mike Hansell

This is not a book full of gorgeous full colour photographs of bowers made by birds, chimpanzee tools, termite nests, etc. I was a bit baffled to see someone giving it less stars because it isn’t that kind of book. Instead, it’s a book that goes into how making structures and using tools could be evolved, and whether it’s automatically a sign of intelligence. To me, the point begins to get a bit laboured, because I can well believe that small changes, small steps, can build up to huge effects. I mean, that’s evolution for you. That’s how it works.

The interesting thing, perhaps, is that Hansell would like to be more optimistic about the link between intelligence and tool use, and yet has to acknowledge that the data really doesn’t support it. In consequence, if Hansell told me something is a sign of intelligence, I’d be inclined to believe him. He doesn’t blind himself to the actual data through wanting a certain outcome.

My main issue with this was really the way it sort of… tailed off. There’s a final chapter talking about birds and whether they create art, and perhaps how art developed in humans, and — then there’s nothing. No conclusion. Even the chapter seems to end a bit weakly. I’d like to see something that synthesises the whole argument and presents it in a nutshell, along with any points about data yet to be collected that could shed more light on the issues. I’m sure Hansell could’ve done that; all the info is there. But this critique is maybe more the English Lit graduate part of me.

Rating: 3/5

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Top Ten Tuesday

Posted September 8, 2015 by Nicky in General / 20 Comments

This week’s prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is “ten finished series I have yet to finish”.

  1. Jacqueline Carey’s Agent of Hel. I think Poison Fruit is the last book, anyway? Soon I’ll get to it. Soon.
  2. Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Okay, I haven’t even finished the first book.
  3. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Sorry?
  4. Kelley Armstrong’s Darkness Rising. I’ve read the Darkest Powers trilogy, but not this one yet.
  5. Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch series. Okay, I haven’t started it. But I have the first book!
  6. Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I’d like to say that by the time this goes live, I will have finished the last book. But it’s unlikely.
  7. Kristin Cashore’s Graceling Realm books. I’m partway through Bitterblue. Perhaps I have finished it as this goes live. Perhaps not. Schrodinger’s book.
  8. Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. I think I’ve got halfway through the series twice now, and then distra
  9. Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books. Yeah, I don’t know that I have an excuse here…
  10. Brian Jacques’ Redwall books. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually read all of them, but it’s a nice thought that some of that warm and cosy world still awaits, should I want to visit.

Okay, that was harder than I expected, since I’m doing this quite a while in advance and I’m not sure what I’ll have got round to by then! What’s on everyone else’s lists?

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