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maribouRunning with the Fox, by David Macdonald, charmingly illustrated by Patricia Barrett
Scientific memoirs of a British fox behaviorist. The best part is the part where he talks about raising fox kits from babyhood. I quite loved it, though I'm not sure how accessible it would always be to someone who wasn't also a biologist. Oh, I also geeked out on seeing all the old SEVERELY outdated tracking tech that was cutting edge at the time.
(28/200)
Long Division, by Kiese Laymon
(Pst - you can follow the link above to find a copy of this book FOR FREE.) This was the first whole book I ever read online, I think. Certainly the first novel. Partly that is because my new laptop is so suitably compact and otherwise perfect, and partly because this book was so perfectly laid out (in simple PDF yet) that it was comfortable to read it in the left 1/4 of my small screen while I had other windows open. Anyway! Enough with the reading process! The book itself is a funny, plausibly, charmingly voiced, highly engaging, and downright provocative YA time travel adventure. Which sounds like mild praise somehow, because it was DAMN GOOD. Seriously. I will probably reread it, and I am so happy to have found this author. (He also writes infrequent essays for adults at Cold Drank and I think he should have more books coming out one of these months? Hope so.) This book isn't really *like* anything else, exactly, but it does sort of sit in a Janet Lunn - Colson Whitehead - John Green shaped triangle in my head.
Bound to Last, edited by Sean Manning
Marvelous, absorbing, personable essays. The stated purpose of the collection was to demonstrate the value of the printed book over ebooks via discussion of the authors' most significant experiences with book-as-physical-object, or something like that, but whatever. I didn't care about that part and the argumentative thrust bits often seemed pretty tacked-on and beside the point. But! The storytelling value, the style, the heartwrench, the enthusiasm... those I loved. All of the essays are thick with meaning, all of them made me want to read something else the author had written, and I almost started reading the book over from the first page as soon as I got to the last one. (I probably still will reread it, or at least go through it and take some notes, before I give it back.)
(30/200)
Greywalker, by Kat Richardson
Fun and undemanding. It's true what my friend Mac says, that Seattle is a character in this series, and I am looking forward to the development of THAT character as much as any other. The worldbuilding is more complex than the people, but the world is awfully nifty and what characterization there was, was friendly and promising.
(31/200)
Twilight Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko
Riveting, complex modern fantasy. This was the third of 4 volumes in this series and I loved the first two so much I kept waiting and waiting to read this one, just because I was afraid that someday I would get caught up and there wouldn't be any more. (see: Parker, KJ, complete works of. This is a thing I do.) It was so good! I think the main narrative voice, that of Anton Gorodetsky, minor Light Magician, is one of my favorite narrative voices in the world. (The parts he doesn't narrate, for example large chunks of Day Watch, are also good - but there's just something so... human-all-too-human about Anton.) Everything is gray and complicated and difficult in these books, but they radiate light. Love love love them. Go start with Night Watch though, don't start here! Many things will be BADLY SPOILED. PS Also the magic system is nifty and not terribly much like how people of Anglo descent tend to do things most of the time. No shades of RPGs or Gaiman or Peake steering the things one might expect to find steered.
(32/200, 20/100)
The Lodger, by Karl Stevens
Comic strips that seem like autobiography but (the author claims) really aren't, interlaced with careful, exact paintings (often of naked women) that remind a person of Wyeth as much as anyone else. I really liked it. I'm glad I read it. It's awfully beautiful in spots, and while the protagonist starts out pretty irritating, he grows on one as one keeps reading.
(33/200, 21/100)
Scientific memoirs of a British fox behaviorist. The best part is the part where he talks about raising fox kits from babyhood. I quite loved it, though I'm not sure how accessible it would always be to someone who wasn't also a biologist. Oh, I also geeked out on seeing all the old SEVERELY outdated tracking tech that was cutting edge at the time.
(28/200)
Long Division, by Kiese Laymon
(Pst - you can follow the link above to find a copy of this book FOR FREE.) This was the first whole book I ever read online, I think. Certainly the first novel. Partly that is because my new laptop is so suitably compact and otherwise perfect, and partly because this book was so perfectly laid out (in simple PDF yet) that it was comfortable to read it in the left 1/4 of my small screen while I had other windows open. Anyway! Enough with the reading process! The book itself is a funny, plausibly, charmingly voiced, highly engaging, and downright provocative YA time travel adventure. Which sounds like mild praise somehow, because it was DAMN GOOD. Seriously. I will probably reread it, and I am so happy to have found this author. (He also writes infrequent essays for adults at Cold Drank and I think he should have more books coming out one of these months? Hope so.) This book isn't really *like* anything else, exactly, but it does sort of sit in a Janet Lunn - Colson Whitehead - John Green shaped triangle in my head.
Bound to Last, edited by Sean Manning
Marvelous, absorbing, personable essays. The stated purpose of the collection was to demonstrate the value of the printed book over ebooks via discussion of the authors' most significant experiences with book-as-physical-object, or something like that, but whatever. I didn't care about that part and the argumentative thrust bits often seemed pretty tacked-on and beside the point. But! The storytelling value, the style, the heartwrench, the enthusiasm... those I loved. All of the essays are thick with meaning, all of them made me want to read something else the author had written, and I almost started reading the book over from the first page as soon as I got to the last one. (I probably still will reread it, or at least go through it and take some notes, before I give it back.)
(30/200)
Greywalker, by Kat Richardson
Fun and undemanding. It's true what my friend Mac says, that Seattle is a character in this series, and I am looking forward to the development of THAT character as much as any other. The worldbuilding is more complex than the people, but the world is awfully nifty and what characterization there was, was friendly and promising.
(31/200)
Twilight Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko
Riveting, complex modern fantasy. This was the third of 4 volumes in this series and I loved the first two so much I kept waiting and waiting to read this one, just because I was afraid that someday I would get caught up and there wouldn't be any more. (see: Parker, KJ, complete works of. This is a thing I do.) It was so good! I think the main narrative voice, that of Anton Gorodetsky, minor Light Magician, is one of my favorite narrative voices in the world. (The parts he doesn't narrate, for example large chunks of Day Watch, are also good - but there's just something so... human-all-too-human about Anton.) Everything is gray and complicated and difficult in these books, but they radiate light. Love love love them. Go start with Night Watch though, don't start here! Many things will be BADLY SPOILED. PS Also the magic system is nifty and not terribly much like how people of Anglo descent tend to do things most of the time. No shades of RPGs or Gaiman or Peake steering the things one might expect to find steered.
(32/200, 20/100)
The Lodger, by Karl Stevens
Comic strips that seem like autobiography but (the author claims) really aren't, interlaced with careful, exact paintings (often of naked women) that remind a person of Wyeth as much as anyone else. I really liked it. I'm glad I read it. It's awfully beautiful in spots, and while the protagonist starts out pretty irritating, he grows on one as one keeps reading.
(33/200, 21/100)
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:23 am (UTC)I have been meaning to read Night Watch for ages and ages, but keep forgetting to pick it up!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 07:19 am (UTC)