Books, Books, Books!

Synopsis (lifted from here): New York Times bestselling author...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:25:44 -0400

Synopsis (lifted from here):

New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen knows how to expertly dissect a brilliantly suspenseful story, all the while keeping fascinated readers riveted to her side. By turns darkly enthralling and relentlessly surprising, Keeping the Dead showcases an author at the peak of her storytelling powers.

For untold years, the perfectly preserved mummy had lain forgotten in the dusty basement of Boston’s Crispin Museum. Now its sudden rediscovery by museum staff is both a major coup and an attention-grabbing mystery. Dubbed ‘Madam X,’ the mummy‘“to all appearances, an ancient Egyptian artifact‘“seems a ghoulish godsend for the financially struggling institution. But medical examiner Maura Isles soon discovers a macabre message hidden within the corpse‘“horrifying proof that this ‘centuries-old’ relic is instead a modern-day murder victim.

To Maura and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, the forensic evidence is unmistakable, its implications terrifying. And when the grisly remains of yet another woman are found in the hidden recesses of the museum, it becomes chillingly clear that a maniac is at large‘“and is now taunting them.

Archaeologist Josephine Pulcillo’s blood runs cold when the killer’s cryptic missives are discovered, and her darkest dread becomes real when the carefully preserved corpse of yet a third victim is left in her car like a gruesome offering‘“or perhaps a ghastly promise of what’s to come.

The twisted killer’s familiarity with post-mortem rituals suggests to Maura and Jane that he may have scientific expertise in common with Josephine. Only Josephine knows that her stalker shares a knowledge even more personally terrifying: details of a dark secret she had thought forever buried.

Now Maura must summon her own dusty knowledge of ancient death traditions to unravel his twisted endgame. And when Josephine vanishes, Maura and Jane have precious little time to derail the Archaeology Killer before he adds another chilling piece to his monstrous collection.

Good - yes.
Gripping - yes.
Plausible - yes.
Page turner - yes,
Keeper - no

I do like Gerritsen. I just cannot be bothered to re-read her books. And if I don’t want to read a book again, why keep it?

From the Cover: Something peculiar is happening. Stockholm is...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:08:51 -0400

From the Cover:

Something peculiar is happening. Stockholm is unduring a heatwave, electrical appliances cannot be switched off and everyone has a blinding headache. Then the terrible news breaks - in the city morgue, the dead are waking…

David always knew his wife was far too good for him. But he never knew how lost be’d be without her until tonight when her car hit an elk. Now she’s one and he’s alone. But when he goes to identify her body, she begins to move. It’s terrifying, but it gives David a strange kind of hope.

Across the city, grieving families find themselves able to see their loved ones one last time. But are these creatures really them? How long can this last? And what does it all mean?

Handling the Undead is a thrilling, shocking and moving story about a love that can defy death from the acclaimed author of Let the Right One In.

I like the way Lindqvist writes. But he does not finish his stories in a way I like. Both Right One and Undead have endings that feel, to me, rushed. Tacked on because, damn it, books have to end somewhere.

Up to that point, an excellent read. After that point, a disappointment. I would recommend them anyway - you might like the endings, not feel dissatisfied the way I did. And the writing itself is superb.

From the Cover: All Kindan ever wanted was to become a Harper,...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:58:05 -0400

From the Cover:

All Kindan ever wanted was to become a Harper, singing and teaching the ballads of Pern, and he is thrilled when he becomes an Apprentice at the Harper Hall. But then he is offered the chance to attend a Hatching and succeeds in Impressing the magnificent bronze fire-lizard, Valla.

There he meets Koriana, daughter of Lord Holder Bemin of Fort Hold. She also Impresses, in her case a gold fire-lizard, and there is an instant attraction between her and Kindan. Unfortunately an Apprentice Harper is not considered a suitable consort for a Fort Holder’s daughter and they are quickly separated. Things go from bad to worse for Kindan when he is accused of starting a fire which destroys ancient and extremely precious Records. He is banished to Fort Hold in shame and dishonour, but his own worries soon pale into insignificance when a terrible plague starts to spread across Pern, killing nearly everyone infected. As it reaches Fort Hold, Kindan and the rest of Pern’s inhabitants know there very survival is in doubt.

a proper Pern novel… bodes well for future volumes - SFX on Dragonsblood

Marge Piercy wrote a poem, which I cannot remember nor track down, about how a writer only has so much creativity, so should bury poems in the garden, against the lean years.

And Anne McCaffrey was, for me, the embodiement of this poem. The Pern books, which I loved from the very first time I read Weyr Search as a short story that won the Hugo in the year of release, gradually got less and less involving and more and more formulaic.

This collaborative effort with her son, Todd (not the first nor the last!) is a true Pern book whilst also suffering from the fact that I have read so, so many Pern books. This has nothing new to offer, no real developmentof character nor a gripping story. Yet I will be getting more, and reading them. Just without the satisfaction that a really well written book gives.

Another beach / journey / quick pickup read.

From the Cover What’s more frightening than your...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:12:45 -0400

From the Cover

What’s more frightening than your next-door neighbours being murdered?

Finding out the killers went to the wrong house…

For the Cutter family the idea that they may have been the intended target seems crazy - but each of them has a secret they’d rather keep buried. What was on that old computer teenage Derek and his friend Adam Langley had salvaged? And where is it now? What hold does a local professor and bestselling author have on Eileen Cutter? And what does Jim Cutter know about Mrs Langley that even her husband didn’t?

To find out who killed the Langleys and why, everybody’s secrets are going to have to come out. But the final secret - the secret that could save them or destroy them - is in the one place nobody would ever think of looking…

Linwood has done it again. Another page turner, another surprise ending. Though I did not find this as interesting, nor as well written as No Time for Goodbye, it is still a good book that will keep you entertained on your journey, or at the beach, or during your lunch hour.

Recommended.

Cleave Books UK

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:49:00 -0400

Cleave Books UK:

All the following resources available: GRoL include The Wind in the Willows, King Solomon’s Mines and Pride & Prejudice - I love finding on-line reading for those days when there is no work to be done at work. Reading a book looks bad when your boss walks in; reading on-line is not so obvious.

TRoL = Teacher Resources on Line = TRoL

SCoL = Specialist Calculators on Line = SCoL
80 of them to cover most needs.

GRoL = Good Reading on Line = GRoL

DUoL = Dictionary of Units = DUoL

A Mathematics Dictionary

A Mathematics Formulary
and
A Study Guide for the Formulary

Calendar Models
Make your own. Useful and attractive.

Pages of Puzzles

The Data Bank

"Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese - both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly...."

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:56:17 -0400

“

Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese - both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation, traveling from the “green deserts”of Brazil and protester-packed streets of South Korea to bankrupt Ugandan coffee farms and barren fields of India. What he uncovers is shocking - the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, an epidemic of farmer suicides, and the false choices and conveniences in supermarkets. Yet he also finds hope — in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system.

From seed to store to plate, Stuffed and Starved explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

Washington Post Review:
If you think the biggest food problems you are ever likely to face are safety issues like outbreaks of salmonella (spinach in 2006, tomatoes and jalapeno peppers this summer) and the high cost of organic produce, you’re woefully naive.

Because, as Paul Roberts and Raj Patel will tell you, the food we eat is part of a global system, one made possible by international trade and transportation… Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review)

”

- Now on my Must Read list.

Powell’s Books - Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel

From the cover: In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:37:00 -0400

From the cover:

In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for Roiben’s coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing — her love for Roiben. But when Kaye, drunk on faerie wine, declares herself to Roiben, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now Kaye can’t see or speak to Roiben unless she can find the one thing she knows doesn’t exist: a faerie who can tell a lie.

Miserable and convinced she belongs nowhere, Kaye decides to tell her mother the truth — that she is a changeling left in place of the human daughter stolen long ago. Her mother’s shock and horror sends Kaye back to the world of Faerie to find her human counterpart and return her to Ironside. But once back in the faerie courts, Kaye finds herself a pawn in the games of Silarial, queen of the Seelie Court. Silarial wants Roiben’s throne, and she will use Kaye, and any means necessary, to get it. In this game of wits and weapons, can a pixie outplay a queen?

Holly Black spins a seductive tale at once achingly real and chillingly enchanted, set in a dangerous world where pleasure mingles with pain and nothing is exactly as it appears.

From Booklist

Finding your place in the world is no picnic at the best of times, but pixie changeling Kaye finds it tougher than most. And no wonder: her boyfriend has been crowned king of the Unseelie Court and her best friend suffers from a faery’s curse.

In this follow-up to Black’s previous two books about the urban fey, Kaye and her gay friend Corny (from Tithe, 2003) meet brothers Luis and Dave (from Valiant, 2005), and the teens are caught in the middle of a clash between the rival faery courts.

As characters struggle to shape their identities, quintessential coming-of-age themes are as skillfully interwoven as in the earlier adventures, as are seductive contradictions: faeries who cannot lie nonetheless find ways to connive and betray, loyalty and love are wielded as weapons, and ethereal beauty often masks cruelty of the ugliest sort.

The chilling game of wits culminates in a satisfying conclusion to this dark, edgy fantasy, a must-purchase for Black’s many devoted fans. Rutan, Lynn

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved - This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Me:
I bought and read the three books in this series, Tithe, Valiant & Ironside, in the wrong order but without caring. I was hooked. In fact, I read Tithe when it was first published and was struck by its power then. But I forgot about it in the intervening years (it may have been only three, but to a compulsive reader like me that is a very long time!)

I actually read this before I read Ironside, but that wasn’t too much of a problem.

Found the teenage love angst a bit much to bear (maybe because I am 55 now, so those days are long gone!); otherwise an excellent read.

Highly recommend all three books.

Gonna have to go investigate Spiderwick now…

Holly Black’s site

Publisher’s site, with a link to read Chapter One and Chapter 2

From the Cover: When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:31:13 -0400

From the Cover:

When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system.

But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

From Booklist

An exile from the Seelie court, the hunky, sensitive troll Ravus resides in a secret laboratory inside the Manhattan Bridge, ministers to other city-dwelling faeries with healing potions, and has exotic golden eyes and jutting fangs.

Runaway Val meets the troll through a trio of homeless teens, runners in Ravus’ potion-distribution network. They introduce Val to subway squatting, Dumpster diving, and “Never” - the drug faeries use to protect themselves from iron, but which affects humans like heroin.

A twisted Agatha Christie-style plot unfolds as faery partakers of Never begin to expire, and Ravus is accused of murder; Val’s feelings for the troll prompt her to clean up her act and investigate the true poisoner. As in Black’s companion novel Tithe (2004), the plot matters far less than the exotic, sexy undercurrents (including a scene where Val overhears teens having sex), the deliciously overripe writing, and the intoxicating, urban-gothic setting, where “everything was strange and beautiful and swollen with possibilities.” Jennifer Mattson, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved. This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Valiant is more grown up than Tithe, with a darker sub plot and a (not very tender) love story unfolding. The sections dealing with the runaways, and how they lived, were realistic and scary; even more so than the faerie themselves!

Highly recommend all three books.

Gonna have to go investigate Spiderwick now…

Holly Black’s site

Publisher’s site, with a link to read The Prologue and Chapter One

From the Cover: Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:20:00 -0400

From the Cover:

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home.

There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could very well mean her death.

From Publishers Weekly:

Tripping the dark fantastic with newcomer Black means pixie dust may very well include blood spatter, sharp thorns and bits of broken glass.

At the center of this edgy novel is Kaye Fierch, a 16-year-old “Asian blonde” who spends most of her time taking care of her would-be rock star mom. When her mom’s latest boyfriend turns homicidal, they return to Gram’s house at the New Jersey shore, where Kaye hooks up with childhood friend Janet and her gay brother, Corny Stone.

Stark images ripple through the third-person narrative, offering clues to Kaye’s internal state (e.g., “She loved the serene brutality of the ocean”). A covert sexual overture from Janet’s boyfriend precedes Kaye’s nighttime encounter at the edge of the woods, where she meets and rescues Roiben, a mysterious Black Knight with silver hair.

Throughout, the author subtly connects Kaye’s awakening sexual feelings in the real world and Roiben’s sudden appearances. Kaye soon discovers that she is a changeling-and that her one-time “imaginary” faerie playmates want her to pretend to be a human, so they can use her as the Tithe (“the sacrifice of a beautiful and talented mortal”) to earn their freedom for seven years. The author’s Bosch-like descriptions of the Unseelie Court, with its Rackham-on-acid denizens, and the exquisite faeries haunt as well as charm. When fate intervenes, sudden tragedy teaches Kaye about the high cost of straddling the faerie and human worlds (and sets the stage for a possible sequel). A gripping read. Ages 12-up.

Highly recommend all three books.

Gonna have to go investigate Spiderwick now…

Holly Black’s site

Publisher’s site, with a link to read Chapter One and Chapter 2

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from..."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:48:17 -0400

“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.”

- Helen Keller (via nihilnoetia) (via libraryland)

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:47:40 -0400

I had forgotten this story! Along with The Marching Morons (link to text), this is one of the best short stories ever written. Thanks, Libraryland!

libraryland:

neighborhoodthreat:

Note: This is the first time I’ve ever read Vonnegut. Figured it’s a good start. Maybe I’ll read Slaughterhouse 5 or something now.

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.

“Huh?” said George.

“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.

“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.

“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.

“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”

“Um,” said George.

“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”

“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.

“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”

“Good as anybody else,” said George.

“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.

“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.

“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”

It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.

“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”

George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.

“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”

“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”

“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”

“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.

“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”

If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.

“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.

“What would?” said George blankly.

“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”

“Who knows?” said George.

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”

He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.

“That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”

“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.

And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.

“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”

A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.

The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.

And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.

“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”

There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.

Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.

George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”

The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.

When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.

Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio.The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.

“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.

“Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”

Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.

Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.

Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.

He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.

“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”

A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.

Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.

She was blindingly beautiful.

“Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.

The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”

The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.

The music began again and was much improved.

Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.

They shifted their weights to their toes.

Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.

And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!

Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.

They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.

They leaped like deer on the moon.

The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.

They kissed it.

And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.

Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.

It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.

Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.

But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.

“Yup,” she said,

“What about?” he said.

“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”

“What was it?” he said.

“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.

“Forget sad things,” said George.

“I always do,” said Hazel.

“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.

“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.

“You can say that again,” said George.

“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”

My all-time favorite Vonnegut story.

Ryan Perry, at 34, is a young man – hardly of an age to be on a...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:08:00 -0400

Ryan Perry, at 34, is a young man – hardly of an age to be on a waiting list, nervously hoping for a heart transplant. Luck appears to be with him: he is the recipient of a new heart, and (fortunately) the transplant takes, triumphantly.

But a year passes, and Ryan begins to receive gifts in the shape of hearts, sent anonymously. A feeling of paranoia sets in – and this feeling is exacerbated when a large amount of money vanishes from his bank account – it has been donated to a local hospital’s cardiology department.

Needless to say, all of this is a prelude to something truly horrific: everything he owns – including his new heart – is to be torn from him, and he is informed he will die a grisly death. Who is Ryan’s tormentor?

What I Thought: Dean Koontz needs to take a holiday. I could count the number of well-written, tension-enhancing pages on my fingers. The angst suffered by Ryan in the first half of the book and the denoument seem to come from different stories entirely and, though the denoument is gripping, and even makes sense, I really would not recommend this to anyone but a die-hard fan. And even they will be disappointed.

Short listed for the Wales Book of the Year 2006 and The Crime...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:43:49 -0400

Short listed for the Wales Book of the Year 2006 and The Crime Writer’s Association New Blood Award 2006.

Air so cold it will steal your life in minutes…
A land so remote that its people make their own rules…
A heart so hard she’s ready to exploit her own children…

Dafydd Woodruff’s life is about to be blown apart by the arrival of unexpected news. It puts his marriage in jeopardy and threatens his medical career. In an effort to make sense of the impossible he takes a flight back to the sub-Arctic Canadian wilderness to confront the demons he thought he’d left behind years ago

..an involving narrative, a sharply observed cast and an atmospherically evoked and unusual setting. - The Guardian

“Ice Trap” is a gripping thriller set in a fascinating and exotic locale. You won’t want to put this one down as you follow the compelling characters across an icy Arctic landscape towards a powerful and extraordinarily moving conclusion. - Peter Robinson, author of Friend of the Devil

One of the most atmospheric and affecting novels of the year… A classy piece of contemporary fiction - Big Issue

What I Thought - This started slow, but by the time I reached the last chapters, it made me late for work by demanding I finish it. Sheila Hailey is a compellingly written nasty piece of work: you would think her enemies would unite against her, but her strength lies in how she intimidates them individually so they do not realise just how in her coils they are. Or who else is trapped with them. Worth a read, I would rate this as 7.5 out of 10

"Japan lives in the future; it has lived there for a century. Hot-wired by repeated onslaughts of..."

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:25:59 -0400

“Japan lives in the future; it has lived there for a century. Hot-wired by repeated onslaughts of technologically driven change, temporally dislocated, deeply traditional yet subject to permutation without notice, we all, today, must to some extent feel ourselves to be warped, alien, disfigured. The Japanese have simply had a head start.”

- William Gibson on how Japan became “the favored default setting for so many cyberpunk writers”. (via dailymeh)

libraryland: redguard: The Slumgullion Bookmobile

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:01:32 -0400

libraryland:

redguard:

The Slumgullion Bookmobile

"My darling, Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in..."

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:17:23 -0400

“My darling,
Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me, placed coins in the palm of my hand). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you.”

- Finish reading here

Juzka’s ravings - Love letter from Neil Gaiman

Thanks to LittleWolfStar, whose love for all things Gaiman pointed me at this excellent story.

"We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck..."

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:16:54 -0400

“We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them.”

- John Waters (via liquidnight) (via wingsandfins)

libraryland: starsandbutterflies: Gorgeous library interior in...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:24:49 -0400

libraryland:

starsandbutterflies:

Gorgeous library interior in Brazil.

"Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books … why are we teaching people to write books..."

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:16:59 -0400

“Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books … why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. And it’s been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with … humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it’s presumably to encourage them to make a better world.”

- Kurt Vonnegut (via alonzopt) (via nerdgasms) (via woody) (via hammerito) (via iguessthatscool) (via whatthevandalstook) (via libraries) (via libraryland)

Books, Books, Books!

Synopsis (lifted from here): New York Times bestselling author...

From the Cover: Something peculiar is happening. Stockholm is...

From the Cover: All Kindan ever wanted was to become a Harper,...

From the Cover What’s more frightening than your...

Cleave Books UK

More Reasons to read Stuffed & Starved

"Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese - both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly...."

From the cover: In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for...

From the Cover: When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to...

From the Cover: Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce...

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from..."

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

Ryan Perry, at 34, is a young man – hardly of an age to be on a...

Short listed for the Wales Book of the Year 2006 and The Crime...

"Japan lives in the future; it has lived there for a century. Hot-wired by repeated onslaughts of..."

libraryland: redguard: The Slumgullion Bookmobile

"My darling, Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in..."

"We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck..."

libraryland: starsandbutterflies: Gorgeous library interior in...

"Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books … why are we teaching people to write books..."