furyofvissarion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
furyofvissarion) wrote2009-02-07 04:13 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2009-02-07 04:13 pm
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Superior Saturday - Garth Nix. The sixth installment of the Keys to the Kingdom series is, like the rest, a rollicking adventure tale with quirky ideas & settings; though a lot of the series has relied on the appeal of old-fashioned adventure story tropes (pirates, etc.) I do wish the bit of savages/witch-doctor imagery that makes a brief appearance in this one hadn't been one of them (it's not even a plot point, either, just one of Dr. Scamandros' changeable tattoos that underscores what he's thinking or feeling at the time—easy to have done something else). I was fascinated by the titular Saturday's towering modular city, & look forward to the conclusion of the series & finding out exactly what each piece of the Will is really up to.
Exchange - Paul Magrs. Teenage Simon, recently orphaned by a plane crash, has gone to live with his grandparents in a tiny little village. He uses books as escapism, as does his gran, & eventually they stumble upon a huge used bookstore, the Great Big Book Exchange. They meet wacky people there. Hijinx ensue.
At first I thought this was going to be a Magical Bookshop story, & I really wasn't in the mood for that, I just wanted a story about people who read a lot & meet other people who read a lot & somehow work through their angst that way. But when it turned out to be that kind of story, it turned kind of over the top (book-burning! reuniting w/a childhood friend after decades now that she's a famous author about to die! & a bookshop owner w/two plastic arms--which the characters seem kind of rudely obsessed w/; I didn't like how the disability issue was handled at all).
Plus, it seemed like Simon & his gran were really indiscriminate readers--I mean, they read anything (as long as it was fiction or biographies) just because it was a book, not particularly because they liked one genre over another. That is just so alien to the way I read that it felt strange to hear about it! Not that everyone has to read in the manner that I do, of course. Just that, for all the books they inhaled, I didn't get a sense that there was one type of book they liked over another, or even that they had particular favorite books (Simon especially).
Two quotes I did like:
The Little Book of Compost - Allan Shepherd. I picked this up because I loved Shepherd's The Organic Garden. This book is a tiny pocket-sized guide to various ways to make & use compost: v. useful. I could do w/o the tired metaphor of every compost heap being like a party—he talks about “guests” & their various tastes & venues & chef's tips etc.
Kin: New Fiction by Black and Asian Women - Edited by Karen McCarthy. My personal mark of success for an anthology is whether or not I finish with a whole list of authors to look up & pursue. Sadly, this didn't happen here. A lot of the stories felt rough, & a lot of them tread over the same important, yet well-worn, ground that a lot of WOC fiction has already... & they didn't in general bring enough extra to the standard plots that I felt they were saying something new.
Exchange - Paul Magrs. Teenage Simon, recently orphaned by a plane crash, has gone to live with his grandparents in a tiny little village. He uses books as escapism, as does his gran, & eventually they stumble upon a huge used bookstore, the Great Big Book Exchange. They meet wacky people there. Hijinx ensue.
At first I thought this was going to be a Magical Bookshop story, & I really wasn't in the mood for that, I just wanted a story about people who read a lot & meet other people who read a lot & somehow work through their angst that way. But when it turned out to be that kind of story, it turned kind of over the top (book-burning! reuniting w/a childhood friend after decades now that she's a famous author about to die! & a bookshop owner w/two plastic arms--which the characters seem kind of rudely obsessed w/; I didn't like how the disability issue was handled at all).
Plus, it seemed like Simon & his gran were really indiscriminate readers--I mean, they read anything (as long as it was fiction or biographies) just because it was a book, not particularly because they liked one genre over another. That is just so alien to the way I read that it felt strange to hear about it! Not that everyone has to read in the manner that I do, of course. Just that, for all the books they inhaled, I didn't get a sense that there was one type of book they liked over another, or even that they had particular favorite books (Simon especially).
Two quotes I did like:
'Look,' she said. 'We've got plenty of room. Your grandad won't mind. Look how many books I've got around the place! He won't even notice a few more. Come on. Bring them. Bring them with you.'Yes, indeedy! And the other:
'All of them?'
She nodded determinedly, pursing her lips. 'Yes. It seems wrong, somehow, to get rid of books. You need them. They'll remind you of who you are. And where you've been. And you'll need them even more, when everything is changing...'
He couldn't go anywhere without the security of at least two novels in the bag he carried everywhere. (Two, in case he finished the first. He needed to make sure he had enough to read. What if he got trapped somewhere? In a lift, or at the very top of a building, and had to wait hours and hours to be rescued?) To him, having these hundreds of pages, these millions of words, forever about his person, meant that he could escape into his own pocket dimension at any moment he liked. He could have another voice talking to him in calm, measured tones. A voice that had nothing to do with his real life. A voice taking him away from the panic of the current moment.
The Little Book of Compost - Allan Shepherd. I picked this up because I loved Shepherd's The Organic Garden. This book is a tiny pocket-sized guide to various ways to make & use compost: v. useful. I could do w/o the tired metaphor of every compost heap being like a party—he talks about “guests” & their various tastes & venues & chef's tips etc.
Kin: New Fiction by Black and Asian Women - Edited by Karen McCarthy. My personal mark of success for an anthology is whether or not I finish with a whole list of authors to look up & pursue. Sadly, this didn't happen here. A lot of the stories felt rough, & a lot of them tread over the same important, yet well-worn, ground that a lot of WOC fiction has already... & they didn't in general bring enough extra to the standard plots that I felt they were saying something new.