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About a week ago I became quite restless with all books. None were what I wanted to read; I read snippets of this and that, started Jane Eyre, attempted to reread Tale of Two Cities, &c.

In the end I realized that what I craving was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I wanted to read something magical and mannered and historical and fantastical. In short, I wanted JS&MrN, and nothing else would do.

It did not disappoint. This was probably the 5th time reading it, at least. Next time I see it for sale at a used book store, I’m going to buy another copy to annotate. Highlight favorite passages and such.

I could probably start back at the beginning right now and be perfectly satisfied.

I need suggestions!  I am burning through the Song of Ice and Fire series—having read 500 pages of A Dance with Dragons since Thursday morning—and need something to read next.  

I’m in the mood for more fantasy type stuff.  I used to be hugely into it as a kid and reading this series has rekindled that.  Though I think I’d like more whimsical stuff next (with airships??)… IDK.  Something that might also inspire LEGO building would be great.

But also, I’m a fan of regular fiction too, so just, recommend away?

A book review and commentary on life!

My mom happened to bring home Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, by Judith Levine, earlier in the week, and I have since read it.  The premise, she and her husband decide to go a year without shopping, or really, a year of only buying “necessities.”  If you’ll read the reviews on Amazon, I suppose I agree with the critics, who blast the book as the diary of a self-absorbed yuppie with no idea what “doing without” really is (she has a house undergoing addition in Vermont, an apartment in NYC, 3 cars, and considered a subscription to the NY Times a necessity.)  It’s also poorly organized and just not well written.  Don’t buy it.

But, the idea of not buying as much is a good one.  How much money have I wasted on candy bars at the corner market or coffee at the school cafe?  And it’s not particularly healthy either, along with soda, the occasional craving for McD’s or Taco Bell…  and there are books I probably would have been better off getting from a library, because now I have to find some place to keep them… today I drove to AAA to pick up a map of SF.  It is at the outdoor mall/lifestyle center, and I was a little tempted to walk around (it is beautiful out) and I could probably do with a new pair of jeans or a nice shirt to wear at work, but it would just be added to the credit card bill which already has a plane flight and 2 nights hotel on it, and would be more stuff to pack with me, and just… eh.  Shopping sucks.

I  just finished read it, but I’m still unsure how I feel about The Magicians by Lev Grossman.  From the synopsis:

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory…. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.  After graduation, his childhood dream of traveling to Fillory becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart. At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

It’s interesting and captivating, definitely a page-turner, but at times it was hard to “connect.”  I found it very difficult to understand the main character’s personality, understand his choices and desires and flaws.

It’s worth mentioning that the magical land “Fillory” is an analog to Narnia, down to the details.  4 children entering magical land, quests, evil witch, talking animals, a god-animal.  And yet it is simultaneously wholly new, richly developed, and tragically dark.

I might have to read it again, in a few months, to see if it has staying power or if, without the novelty of “first read,” it collapses.  It might be added to the illustrious “favorite books” list if things go well.

I finished The BLDGBLOG Book this morning.  The book is divided into 4 main topics:  the underground, the sky, music sound and noise, and landscape futures.  I thought it was a good idea to focus on just a few subject areas (as the blog covers everything and anything) but I didn’t care for some of the choices.

The sky section was merely okay, and I barely skimmed “music sound and noise.”  The other sections made up for it, as well as the 4 mini-chapters which discussed the best stuff that didn’t fit into the main chapters…

If I had $20, I’d buy it.

(by William Pene du Bois)

This book is labelled as a children’s book, but don’t let that deter you.

It concerns Professor William Waterman Sherman, a retired math teacher who sets off in 1883 from San Fransisco in a balloon of his own design (stocked with supplies for a full year), intent to fly over the Pacific and to where ever the winds take him.  But, three weeks later, he is found floating in the Atlantic, among the wreckage of an entirely different conveyance, including twenty deflated balloons!

The book thus details his amazing adventure, told by the Professor, to an eager national and international audience.  It is delightful and inventive, and includes several incredible flying machines, complete with illustrations.  Get it from your library, yall!

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America may technically be a work of post-apocalyptic fiction, but to pigeon-hole it would do it a disservice. It is as much a work of science fiction as Against the Day.

The setting is a post-peak oil America, which combines with global warming and widespread famine to radically alter the world, with the US adopting 19th century mores to match its 19th century technology.  America now has 60 states (including most of the now-warmer Canada), the presidency can be inherited or usurped, and there are 3 branches of government:  the Executive, the Military, and the Dominion, a religious organization that enforces the new First Amendment, which grants the right to worship at any Dominion-sanctioned Christian church.

That’s just a general outline of the world author Robert Charles Wilson imagines.  The populous no longer believes man walked on the moon, society is divided into Aristos, leasers, and indentured servants, war is fought in trenches, and the remains of the Statue of Liberty sit on the Executive Palace lawn.

All that besides, the story tracks the course of Julian Comstock, nephew of the President, who is swept up into war under an assumed name with his friend (and narrator) Adam Hazzard.  It’s an exciting adventure novel, political intrique story, and speculative future all in one.  It even includes lyrics to a musical about Charles Darwin, who’s life story is spiced up with romance, a swashbuckling rival, and pirates.

I recommend it, perhaps especially to fans of any of the other books I’ve reviewed.

Book Review!

A study on sentience and consciousness disguised as a near-future hard-sci-fi journey to an alien artifact, Blindsight features Sunshine- or 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque spacetravel, and a bizarre cast of characters: a linguist with surgically-created multiple personality disorder, a biologist hooked directly into the ship, a vampire, and a man with half a brain (resulting in a complete lack of empathy) as narrator.

If that sounds crazy, wait until the crew gets to the alien object, self-named Rorschach, with creatures that move between the saccade movement of an observer (and thus becoming functionally invisible) and use electrical impulses to convince one crew member that she is already dead.  Throughout, real cutting-edge research on the human mind is expanded to incredible fictional heights, all backed by footnotes citing leading philosophers and scientists.

Of note, an oddly convincing scientific hypothesis on vampires.  Covering their evolution, feeding habits, “undead” state, and even the aversion to crucifixes, author Peter Watts shows that maybe, just maybe, vampires could be real (and they don’t fall in love with loser girls or sparkle in the sun).  If you want to read a bit about the vampires, see A Brief Primer on Vampire Biology.  The entire book is available online (pdf), Creative Commons style, but I’d recommend getting a print copy out of the library.