jennIRL

QUICKSILVER, Neal Stephenson: i’ve been talking to customers about Stephenson in preparation for finally picking up REAMDE (which, btw, i like to prounounce “read me” because otherwise it just makes me insane, but that’s neither here nor there), and one in particular insisted i start with the Baroque Cycle, of which this is the first book. and it turns out it is ONE HELL OF A STORY that had me so sucked in i wasn’t reading anything else at the same time — unheard of, practically. at least, until my OverDrive loan expired and then there were three other people waiting to read it so i couldn’t immediately re-rent it, so i am only halfway through and am now reading other things until it’s free again (or until i buy it, that could happen too). epic historical fiction with a tinge of the fantastical to it. brilliant.

WHY WE BROKE UP, Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman: i really dug this one — it felt like a bit like being in a time machine back to high school. which was a mildly uncomfortable and awkward experience (much like high school itself), but vivid and entertaining nonetheless.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, John le Carre: well sheeeeit. the movie is coming out so i figured i would finally get around to this one. have read other le Carre and very much enjoyed, of course, but this one has me on absolute tenterhooks. am trying REALLY HARD not to look at the cast list on imdb (i haven’t seen any trailers) lest i prejudice my inner movie of the book. at the moment George Smiley is a moustache-less Jim Broadbent, Ricki Tarr is a young Crispin Glover at his smarmiest, and Prideaux is a sort of grizzled cross between Gerard Butler and Daniel Pirrie (actor who plays the asshole soldier who gets Ethel pregnant on Downton Abbey). just in case you were wondering.

CAPITAL, John Lanchester, June 2012: Lanchester is the dude who wrote DEBT TO PLEASURE, which is an all-time favorite unreliable narrator book for me, so i was psyched to see what was next. CAPITAL is very different, and very very good. it all takes place on one posh street in London right as the international economic crisis is starting. and you get POV for a variety of residents — an elderly lady who’s lived in her (now very very valuable) house forever, a (pretty sympathetic) banker and his (surprisingly sympathetic) spoiled wife and children, an immigrant builder who works on the street, the Indian family that owns the corner store, etc etc. timely very well-drawn look at what is happening to us that manages not to feel preachy, really, and has some great characters. also i just LOVE that offhand British style that creates passages like this:

“….. and then the general hard-to-believe expensiveness of everything in London, restaurants and shoes and parking fines and cinemas tickets and gardeners and the feeling that every time you went anywhere or did anything money just started melting off you. Roger didn’t mind that, he was completely up for it, but it did mean that if he didn’t get his million-pound bonus this year he was at genuine risk of going broke.”

i think reading GRACELING and AMONG OTHERS in proximity rewired my brain and now i just can’t stop reading my favorite YA, which means i am reading every Tamora Pierce book i can get my hands on. so in the past two weeks i’ve read TRICKSTER’S CHOICE, TRICKSTER’S QUEEN (hellooooooooo, hot crow-shapeshifter-dude!), and BLOODHOUND. the Beka Cooper books in particular are genius because they are actually police procedurals, you guys, plus magic and Tortall and a killer will-they-won’t-they romance. i am now trying to imagine my ultimate lady crime fighting team, which would have to include Beka Cooper, Karrin Murphy, Kate Daniels, Buffy Summers, Temperance Brennan and Stephanie Brown. (#nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrd)

BITTERBLUE, Kristen Cashore, May 2012: GRACELING and FIRE are two of my all-time favorite YA titles ever, ever, ever, and i didn’t even know a third one was coming down the pipe until my rep emailed us about it. god bless you forever and ever, Nicole. this book is So Good. i had to immediately go back and reread the others. so good. you are excited. go reread the others!

A ROGUE BY ANY OTHER NAME, Sarah MacLean, February 2012: my love for Sarah is great, and only grows with time. she has really outdone herself, on all fronts, with the new series. four fallen men who run a gaming hall in Victorian (or whatever) London! what women will SAVE THEM? and what women will THEY SAVE? omg. plus and also, a cast-away from Love By the Numbers gets her own happy ending! but i’m not saying any more than that, that would be spoiling things.

WILD THING, Josh Bazell, February 2012: pretty much nothing could ever top BEAT THE REAPER for sheer wooooooooaaaahhh, but he really tries on this one. Peter Brown, ten years later! what does that even look like? and why is there a North American version of the Loch Ness monster involved? proceed from there. while there are no bone-knives or shark-tank-sex scenes in this one (but i mean, come on, you can’t do that again) there is plenty of WTF to go around.

note: i am the worst blogger in the world. i will try to do this every two weeks again. no promises! since i had to arbitrarily decide where to pick back up, you’re basically getting December.

AMONG OTHERS, Jo Walton: holy crap, you guys. if you grew up reading, wishing you could get into your books, convinced that some of it MUST be true, right? i mean, just a little bit of it?, and you’ve always had more opinions about books than anything else, you must read this book. it is ALSO a beautiful and moving story of a girl grieving for her lost twin, and a modern-day fairytale. snifflers, have tissues ready. just out in paperback! recommended to me by the almost-always-correct bookavore.

THE SIXTH GUN VOL 2, Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt: less Western, more voodoo! maybe not quiiiiite as satisfying as Vol 1 because there was no Missy (WHERE ARE YOU, Missy?? i know you are out there plotting!) but according to the back cover she is in Vol 3, so there’s that.

SYLVESTER: OR THE WICKED UNCLE, Georgette Heyer: don’t let the subtitle mislead you. contrary to what you might expect, this is not some weird uncle/niece spankfest. (the subtitle is misleading, OKAY?? seriously, guys. worst subtitle for a romance ever.) if Georgette Heyer ever wrote one of those, i don’t know about it. and i kind of wish i did because i would read it just for the sheer WTF value alone. but i digress. this is another Austen-esque gentle romance. the lead is kind of a prig, and the heroine is a little wishy-washy, but Heyer at her mediocre is a billion times better than many authors at their best, and whatever you should read this.

CLOUD ATLAS, David Mitchell: i waited a year before reading my boss’s favorite book of pretty much all time. i managed to escape knowing pretty much anything about the plot at all, other than that she liked it. i give you the same gift — know that this is an AMAZING BOOK, and that is all that i am going to tell you, trust me, it’s better that way.

THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY, Michel Houellebecq: i cannot get over that i can spell his name right first time, no checking. I HAVE LEVELED UP, YO. i’d never read the dude before, but as i have been telling customers, i will now probably dive into the backlist. he does that thing that i usually hate, where he inserts himself into the story, but the difference here is that MH is a CHARACTER in the story, not some “i” voice suddenly intruding into what has up to this point been a third-person-close narrative, [insert obligatory Kundera rant here] so it’s ok. also bonus points for a seriously grisly murder! p.s. the cover is awful, don’t let it fool you.

CINDER, Marissa Meyer: oh my god you guys, cyborg Cinderella! YOU MUST READ IT. you must. it’s so much fun. very Hunger Games-ian in both writing style (i mean that in both the good and not-so-good ways you might be thinking) and in plotting — great big awesome concept, lots of page-turners, romance on the side. this book induced uncontrollable text-messaging in both myself and wonderali, which is always a good sign. also?? each book in the series is going to be a different fairytale character, from what i hear, and I SWEAR TO GOD i know who is next and i cannot freaking contain myself.