7 posts tagged “fiction”
Still haven't finished this one either.
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Oh Laura. Pls to be my president.
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Movie > book.
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Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial (August 29, 2006)
List Price: $13.95
ISBN: 0061142026
BINC:
Page Count: 288
Summary: Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. (amazon)
Best Bit: Yvaine is very snarky, for a fallen star.
Quick Review: I love this book a lot. So much in fact that I first bought this version, then tracked down the illustrated version, then actually spent some money on a signed ARC copy. So that's really a lot of love.
Final Grade: A
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial (August 29, 2006)
List Price: $13.95
ISBN: 0061142026
BINC:
Page Count: 288
Summary: Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. (amazon)
Best Bit: Yvaine is very snarky, for a fallen star.
Quick Review: I love this book a lot. So much in fact that I first bought this version, then tracked down the illustrated version, then actually spent some money on a signed ARC copy. So that's really a lot of love.
Final Grade: A
Title: Endymion Spring
Author: Matthew Skelton
Genre: Fiction (Independent Reader)
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (August 22, 2006)
List Price: $17.95
ISBN: 0385733801
BINC:
Page Count: 400
Summary:
From a review on amazon: He didn't find the book. The book found him. When American expatriate and teenager Blake moved to Oxford, England with his annoying little sister and scholar mother he expected to be bored. What he did not expect was to be bitten by an ancient crumbling novel with the words, "Endymion Spring" on the cover. Intrigued by his find, Blake suddenly finds increasingly strange things happening to him. He receives a little paper dragon that seems to have a mind of its own. His sister is acting quieter and more withdrawn than usual. By the time he understands what he's gotten into, it's far too late. Blake's fate is tied in with that of the original Endymion Spring, a boy apprentice to the great printer Gutenberg himself. Leaping between the past and the present, this tale draws together scholars of every age, the lure of power, and how one book can change the entire world. Magic and research combine in a terrifying mix.
Best Bit:
The big ending scene in the basement of the Oxford library. This book makes libraries cool. Sweet!
Quick Review:
Um, it's like the Da Vinci Code for kids. Which isn't necessarily bad, and it's engaging enough, but it's definitely not the best thing ever. Although hey, yey Oxford.
Final Grade: C
Author: Matthew Skelton
Genre: Fiction (Independent Reader)
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (August 22, 2006)
List Price: $17.95
ISBN: 0385733801
BINC:
Page Count: 400
Summary:
From a review on amazon: He didn't find the book. The book found him. When American expatriate and teenager Blake moved to Oxford, England with his annoying little sister and scholar mother he expected to be bored. What he did not expect was to be bitten by an ancient crumbling novel with the words, "Endymion Spring" on the cover. Intrigued by his find, Blake suddenly finds increasingly strange things happening to him. He receives a little paper dragon that seems to have a mind of its own. His sister is acting quieter and more withdrawn than usual. By the time he understands what he's gotten into, it's far too late. Blake's fate is tied in with that of the original Endymion Spring, a boy apprentice to the great printer Gutenberg himself. Leaping between the past and the present, this tale draws together scholars of every age, the lure of power, and how one book can change the entire world. Magic and research combine in a terrifying mix.
Best Bit:
The big ending scene in the basement of the Oxford library. This book makes libraries cool. Sweet!
Quick Review:
Um, it's like the Da Vinci Code for kids. Which isn't necessarily bad, and it's engaging enough, but it's definitely not the best thing ever. Although hey, yey Oxford.
Final Grade: C
Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Genre: Fiction/Literature
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (May 23, 2006)
List Price: $15.95
ISBN: 0061120081
BINC: 8258291
Page Count: 336
Summary:
According to Amazon: A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father -- a crusading local lawyer -- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Best Bit:
Calpurnia. I love her. Also, Atticus, in general, because he is so clueless sometimes about raising Jem and Scout, but he really does everything right.
Quick Review:
Uh, it's pretty much a classic. I reread because I haven't read it in ages, and had pretty much forgotten most of the major plot points. But how can you "review" a book like To Kill a Mockingbird?
Final Grade: A
Author: Harper Lee
Genre: Fiction/Literature
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial Modern Classics (May 23, 2006)
List Price: $15.95
ISBN: 0061120081
BINC: 8258291
Page Count: 336
Summary:
According to Amazon: A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father -- a crusading local lawyer -- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Best Bit:
Calpurnia. I love her. Also, Atticus, in general, because he is so clueless sometimes about raising Jem and Scout, but he really does everything right.
Quick Review:
Uh, it's pretty much a classic. I reread because I haven't read it in ages, and had pretty much forgotten most of the major plot points. But how can you "review" a book like To Kill a Mockingbird?
Final Grade: A
Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Fiction/Literature
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: Knopf (September 26, 2006)
List Price: $24.00
ISBN: 0307265439
BINC: 8451754
Page Count: 241
Summary:
A father and son, post-apocalyptic America, on the road.
Best Bit:
I don't want to give too much away (with new fiction especially, there's a lot to spoil for potential readers), but I do enjoy the fact that this adventure takes place many years after the destruction of society, that food really is that scarce. Most of these kinds of stories start with the actual end event, then go from there, but the two main characters have been on the road for years before we meet them.
Quick Review:
I am going to go out on a limb here. A lot of people are saying that this is McCarthy's finest work, and honestly, I feel like the fact that I haven't read anything else by him impacts how I read this book. That said, this book is highly stylized, and much more about the ideas of a post-apocalyptic world than the story he could be telling. So for most of the book, I was thinking, Stephen King could (and has) told this story so much better. This is from a purely story-telling point of view. It was hard not to compare the book to The Stand, or even Cell, and in some cases, I saw parallels between this and Joss Whedon's Firefly series (between the Reavers and the cannibals in McCarthy's ash-filled America). The problem is, these three works that I have in the back of my head all have characters that I love, whereas that was sorely lacking in this book.
The blank slate that the ash and burnt out cities and woods full of dead trees provide a place for McCarthy to work lingustic wonders, but little else. He is focused on THE IDEAS, and while that isn't a bad thing, sometimes the ideas don't need to be the focus. A good story with characters that you root for in such a setting like this still leads you to the ideas on your own, and it is just, if not more, satisfying to read.
I'm not saying I didn't like the book, because I did. I read it tonight in about four or five hours in pretty much a straight shot (with some time taken for dinner). But I feel like this book is just an excuse for people who are fans of literature instead of fans of a story to finally get to play around in a setting that is usually reserved for genres such as horror, science ficition, or fantasy (the lesser pursuits, so to speak). It just isn't sitting well with me.
Final Grade: C
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Fiction/Literature
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: Knopf (September 26, 2006)
List Price: $24.00
ISBN: 0307265439
BINC: 8451754
Page Count: 241
Summary:
A father and son, post-apocalyptic America, on the road.
Best Bit:
I don't want to give too much away (with new fiction especially, there's a lot to spoil for potential readers), but I do enjoy the fact that this adventure takes place many years after the destruction of society, that food really is that scarce. Most of these kinds of stories start with the actual end event, then go from there, but the two main characters have been on the road for years before we meet them.
Quick Review:
I am going to go out on a limb here. A lot of people are saying that this is McCarthy's finest work, and honestly, I feel like the fact that I haven't read anything else by him impacts how I read this book. That said, this book is highly stylized, and much more about the ideas of a post-apocalyptic world than the story he could be telling. So for most of the book, I was thinking, Stephen King could (and has) told this story so much better. This is from a purely story-telling point of view. It was hard not to compare the book to The Stand, or even Cell, and in some cases, I saw parallels between this and Joss Whedon's Firefly series (between the Reavers and the cannibals in McCarthy's ash-filled America). The problem is, these three works that I have in the back of my head all have characters that I love, whereas that was sorely lacking in this book.
The blank slate that the ash and burnt out cities and woods full of dead trees provide a place for McCarthy to work lingustic wonders, but little else. He is focused on THE IDEAS, and while that isn't a bad thing, sometimes the ideas don't need to be the focus. A good story with characters that you root for in such a setting like this still leads you to the ideas on your own, and it is just, if not more, satisfying to read.
I'm not saying I didn't like the book, because I did. I read it tonight in about four or five hours in pretty much a straight shot (with some time taken for dinner). But I feel like this book is just an excuse for people who are fans of literature instead of fans of a story to finally get to play around in a setting that is usually reserved for genres such as horror, science ficition, or fantasy (the lesser pursuits, so to speak). It just isn't sitting well with me.
Final Grade: C
