Bookavore

voracious reader with a certain verbal attitude

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10 notes &

This book is REALLY great and even though I called it sci-fi on Twitter a moment ago, it’s really fantasy. I always forget how much I love fantasy until I read good fantasy. Sadly, I always seem to let the shitty fantasy keep me away from the genre. But this is well-crafted, all around, the writing and the world-building and the characters. Has all the compelling elements of classic fantasy but is still inventive and surprising. Very highly recommended. If you’ve not been reading much fantasy either, take heart in this lovely passage from the N. K. Jemisin’s (very funny) self-interview at the end of the book: “Look, I don’t have a problem with medieval Europe. I have a problem with modern fantasy’s fetishization of medieval Europe; that’s different. So many fantasy writers and fans simplify the social structure of the period, monotonize the cultural interactions, treat conflicts as binaries instead of the complicated dynamic tapestry they actually were. They’re not doing medieval Europe, they’re doing Simplistic British Isles Fantasy Full of Lots of Guys with Swords And Not Much Else.” Hee. The best part is that it is a trade paperback original. The other best part is that the sequel (The Shadowed Sun) is coming out NEXT MONTH also as a trade paperback original! Why don’t more publishers do this?!  (By “this” I mean “wait until there are two books and then publish them back-to-back in a more affordable format,” not “chain writers up in a room and make them write faster.” Just to be clear.)

This book is REALLY great and even though I called it sci-fi on Twitter a moment ago, it’s really fantasy. I always forget how much I love fantasy until I read good fantasy. Sadly, I always seem to let the shitty fantasy keep me away from the genre. But this is well-crafted, all around, the writing and the world-building and the characters. Has all the compelling elements of classic fantasy but is still inventive and surprising. Very highly recommended.

If you’ve not been reading much fantasy either, take heart in this lovely passage from the N. K. Jemisin’s (very funny) self-interview at the end of the book:

“Look, I don’t have a problem with medieval Europe. I have a problem with modern fantasy’s fetishization of medieval Europe; that’s different. So many fantasy writers and fans simplify the social structure of the period, monotonize the cultural interactions, treat conflicts as binaries instead of the complicated dynamic tapestry they actually were. They’re not doing medieval Europe, they’re doing Simplistic British Isles Fantasy Full of Lots of Guys with Swords And Not Much Else.”

Hee. The best part is that it is a trade paperback original. The other best part is that the sequel (The Shadowed Sun) is coming out NEXT MONTH also as a trade paperback original! Why don’t more publishers do this?! 

(By “this” I mean “wait until there are two books and then publish them back-to-back in a more affordable format,” not “chain writers up in a room and make them write faster.” Just to be clear.)

Filed under n k jemisin the killing moon the shadowed sun books fantasy

12 notes &

The Song of Achilles is great though serious fun! You should read it. I think it’s a fair assumption that if you read my blog you are a nerd, which means when you were a kid, you were just a flat-out dork, which means you had at least one period of obsession with Greek mythology and its unending stories and things to memorize. (I had only had one myself, but I had two periods of Egyptian-mythology obsession, the blame for which rests with Zilpha Keatley Snyder.) If I have assumed correctly, then you should read this book, which will plunge you right back into the glory of all that insanity, except with more overt acknowledgement that, yeah, some Greeks were gay. (Even the famous ones. Especially the famous ones.) The tone and the pace are perfect. But what I loved most about it was that Miller has done such a good job of bringing to life what’s always fascinated me most about that period in history: the gauze-y vagueness of living in a time where the gods were as much a part of life as weather, and just as incomprehensible. The scariness and banality of a world at constant war, with tangled loyalties and family trees. The humanity people had then, too, and the way they faced death.  A strange afteraffect of this book is that I finished it last night, and then today started tearing through Bring Up The Bodies (of course, it’s amazing so far, I can’t believe I took a break from it to write this), and Achilles is ALL OVER that shit. Achilles this, Achilles and Hector that. Nary a Tudor can resist the allure of an Achilles reference! I like when the books talk to each other. It’s trippy.

The Song of Achilles is great though serious fun! You should read it.

I think it’s a fair assumption that if you read my blog you are a nerd, which means when you were a kid, you were just a flat-out dork, which means you had at least one period of obsession with Greek mythology and its unending stories and things to memorize. (I had only had one myself, but I had two periods of Egyptian-mythology obsession, the blame for which rests with Zilpha Keatley Snyder.)

If I have assumed correctly, then you should read this book, which will plunge you right back into the glory of all that insanity, except with more overt acknowledgement that, yeah, some Greeks were gay. (Even the famous ones. Especially the famous ones.) The tone and the pace are perfect. But what I loved most about it was that Miller has done such a good job of bringing to life what’s always fascinated me most about that period in history: the gauze-y vagueness of living in a time where the gods were as much a part of life as weather, and just as incomprehensible. The scariness and banality of a world at constant war, with tangled loyalties and family trees. The humanity people had then, too, and the way they faced death. 

A strange afteraffect of this book is that I finished it last night, and then today started tearing through Bring Up The Bodies (of course, it’s amazing so far, I can’t believe I took a break from it to write this), and Achilles is ALL OVER that shit. Achilles this, Achilles and Hector that. Nary a Tudor can resist the allure of an Achilles reference!

I like when the books talk to each other. It’s trippy.

Filed under books song of achilles bring up the bodies madeline miller hilary mantel

25 notes &

A story about the book industry I would actually like to read

I am sure in every industry it is the same: nobody likes to read what non-industry reporters have to say about what they do for a living. It is almost always painful. This seems to be a special problem for the book industry. By their nature, journalists are likely to want to think about how the printed word is doing, and by its nature, the book industry is likely to read articles about itself, and then write about them. There are about ten stories written about the book industry outside of the industry (and, let’s be honest, this is a problem inside the industry as well); my personal bugbears are ebooks and physical books are locked in a cage match TO THE DEATH, comics aren’t just for kids anymore! and several people who don’t agree told us different things about book pricing.

With this in mind, I respectfully and selfishly offer an article idea.

A trend I’ve been noticing in the past year is what seems to be an uptick in the number of established, profitable independent bookstores being sold by their owners, and especially a lot of articles where the owners talk about how they’ve loved the store dearly but it’s time to retire and think the store will need a new, energetic person to take it to the next level and contend with all the recent changes in the industry. Generally there are two mentions in the press: one when the owner announces their intent to sell, and one six months to a year later, when the sale is completed. The owner usually announces the sale with a high level of optimism and often has several qualified, interested candidates to choose from.

A high-profile example is last year’s sale of DC’s Politics and Prose. But if you read Shelf Awareness and PW Daily every day (and why wouldn’t you?), you know that they are pretty common. For example, in the past week, Mystery Lovers Bookshop (in business for 22 years) in PA announced its new ownership, and Roberta Rubin, owner of The Book Stall in Winnetka (this year’s PW Bookstore of the Year, celebrating their 30th anniversary) announced that she is starting to look for a new owner.

I like reading all these smaller individual stories. I think they’re cool. What I want is for someone to delve a little deeper into them. I want to know how and why this happens, and if it means anything. This isn’t the same story as why do people keep opening bookstores in these modern times, though that is also interesting. Both things are challenging, but opening a bookstore is not at all the same thing as buying one that already exists.

Here is a short list of things that these news items make me wonder:

  • How does one decide, after decades, to sell one’s bookstore?
  • And why? Is that decision caused by a single event that makes it all clear, or is it gradual?
  • What makes a person want to buy a bookstore? Why do so many people say they’ve always dreamed of owning a bookstore?
  • Is this person a customer? Is this person in the book industry? Who is this person? How old is this person? What does this person like to read?
  • How much do these people know about the book business?
  • How many people are interested in owning a bookstore until they learn about the book business?
  • How many people are even more interested once they know more about the book business?
  • What do these reactions tell us about the book industry? Can we learn something?
  • Is it easier to take over and make changes to an established store, or is it easier to start from scratch? Do the former owners and new owners agree about the answer to this?
  • What changes do the former owners imagine will be necessary? What changes do they think will be necessary but that they do not want to make themselves?
  • What changes do the new owners make?
  • How is owning a bookstore like the new owners thought it would be? How is it different?

I really believe there is something here! This is happening nationally, in urban, suburban, and rural areas, even though running bookstores in those three types of place are different undertakings. It’s happening at large stores and tiny ones; it’s happening at niche stores and general interest ones as well. After years of the beat of bookstore-closed-bookstore-closed-bookstore-closed pulsing through any article even tangentially related to books, this is an interesting counterpoint. Other bookstores closed. These did not. Why not? And what will happen to them now? This seems like a good moment in time to ask those questions, and could provide us with a good new way to think about bookstores and books and all that.

Okay, somebody go write this now. I think it would function best as a multi-part series. Make it so.

Filed under books bookstore thoughts journalism (potential) longreads

6 notes &

I am pretty new to the J. Robert Lennon fanclub, so I have the vigor of the recently converted, and snatched this book out of the galley pile so quickly that I knocked five other books on the floor.  It’s fantastic. It’s crazy! I have no idea what actually happened in it, but I loved it. I intend to read it again even though I’m not sure I’ll understand it any better. I recently watched the movie Primer and it had the same mindfeel to it, where understanding the internal logic seems somehow besides the point—it’s more important to experience the mental strain in trying to make the internal logic work. I tried to explain it to Jenn yesterday and sounded nuts. “It’s about a lady? Who stops at a rest stop. And then she gets back in the car and she’s her, but she’s not her, and she has a different car and different clothes and she’s coming from somewhere else and it might be good, might be bad, and she has to figure it all out on the fly, and it’s CREEPY. Even though technically maybe nothing is wrong? And great, the writing is really great. And there’s video games.” Obviously I need to work on my handsell for this one. It’s not out until October, so I have time. In the meantime if you haven’t read Castle, you should, which is less confusing, I think, but also much much creepier. And just as good.

I am pretty new to the J. Robert Lennon fanclub, so I have the vigor of the recently converted, and snatched this book out of the galley pile so quickly that I knocked five other books on the floor. 

It’s fantastic. It’s crazy! I have no idea what actually happened in it, but I loved it. I intend to read it again even though I’m not sure I’ll understand it any better. I recently watched the movie Primer and it had the same mindfeel to it, where understanding the internal logic seems somehow besides the point—it’s more important to experience the mental strain in trying to make the internal logic work. I tried to explain it to Jenn yesterday and sounded nuts.

“It’s about a lady? Who stops at a rest stop. And then she gets back in the car and she’s her, but she’s not her, and she has a different car and different clothes and she’s coming from somewhere else and it might be good, might be bad, and she has to figure it all out on the fly, and it’s CREEPY. Even though technically maybe nothing is wrong? And great, the writing is really great. And there’s video games.”

Obviously I need to work on my handsell for this one. It’s not out until October, so I have time. In the meantime if you haven’t read Castle, you should, which is less confusing, I think, but also much much creepier. And just as good.

Filed under books familiar j robert lennon

3 notes &

Window of Greenpoint clothing boutique Pipsqueak Chapeau. I keep walking by this and thinking it must be intended for an adult cosplaying Eloise. (I was her for Halloween a few years ago, so I’m still keeping an eye out for the costume without meaning to.)

Window of Greenpoint clothing boutique Pipsqueak Chapeau. I keep walking by this and thinking it must be intended for an adult cosplaying Eloise. (I was her for Halloween a few years ago, so I’m still keeping an eye out for the costume without meaning to.)

Filed under books costumes eloise