Tag Archives: books

by

A Peek into My Mind

First and foremost, I give you cats what you want and what my site is becoming known for: a picture of a baby corgi.

yet another pic of a corgi puppy

This pic was linked to me by Amy T

This was from the header of a funny story about Rick Santorum.

My friends link me things with corgis and about The Hunger Games, because they know these things make me happy and my friends are awesome. Except for Chantz, who linked me an angry reviewer screaming a review about how bad The Hunger Games movie is. Chantz is an asshole. I don’t care how bad it is. I’m going to see it tomorrow DAMNIT.  Angry reviewer man is not the boss of me.

So, this morning my friend Cynthia linked me this:

Apparently, no one is the boss of Kristen Bell AND she loves The Hunger Games.

I think there are worse things to be known than corgis and The Hunger Games.

So, I have a baby shower next Saturday, and I am excited to go, but, as we all know,I have the whole social anxiety thing. I’ve been thinking it over in my head a lot so I can prepare it for myself. I realized I have a pretty awesome anxiety.

We all know I am not very good at being a real woman. I love kids, and I find cute baby stuff awesome, but I am completely clueless. Not only am I completely clueless, but I am also VERY adept at saying the wrong thing at exactly the right time.

I think terrible things like hooking up both boobs to a breast pump at the same time and seeing which one wins a race to pump the most the fastest. I even imagine an announcer calling it like a horse race. “Left breast is in the lead by a few milliliters, can right breast catch up in time?”

No woman in her right mind would find that funny or appropriate, so I know not to say those things. Well, my brain is very busy filtering things like that, I know some other, less obvious shit, will break through. I also know I develop Tourette’s syndrome the second I get into a situation that makes me uncomfortable. The more nervous I am, the more f-bombs I drop.

In my mind, I am going to walk into Angela’s baby shower and within ten minutes swear up a blue streak and make at least five uncouth comments about tits and vaginas. THIS IS WHY MY FRIENDS CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

I am going to work on convincing myself that they knew it was a very real possibility when they invited me. Really, it is their fault that I will probably involuntarily offend everyone in the lovely, lady-like shower before the afternoon is over. They invited me. Never invite me to things unless you are willing to accept the consequences.  The bonus is that everyone will be knocked up, so there won’t be booze and the potential disaster that booze always brings.

Yep, I can handle being known for corgis and The Hunger Games

 
Share
by

What I Did Last Night (Read The Hunger Games)

So instead of writing last night,  I sent out my first submission letter, which felt like a huge deal, even though it probably isn’t. I thought about my where to go next with my story. I also read The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins. I consider it working, sorta.

I have accidentally started reviewing things on my site. It is unintentional. It started with my adventures in reading Twilight. I don’t think I would normally have written about this book, except I found myself trying to explain it on Facebook. By the way, I’ve finished the Twilight Saga. I’ve decided that I had a lot of fun making fun of the first two, but I felt mean afterwards. I didn’t like them because they were romances, heavy teenage romances. I am not exactly the audience for that. The last two had some interesting ideas, and the secondary characters played a far bigger role in the story, giving me characters to relate to. I don’t think I can be made to watch the movies though. I am just not that into pretty people.

The cover of the book The Hunger Games

The cover of the book in question.

Anyway, back to the book in question, my sister lent me this book, and I started reading it last night at about 11pm and finished it at 6am. I read it straight through, that quickly, for a few reasons.

First, it is a fairly uncomplicated read. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either. Some writers get very involved in their own worlds when they write that they have a hard time making the story accessible for those of us who don’t live there, too. I also think some writers get off on how awesome they are when they write books that require the reader to have post-it notes to keep things straight. I think it says a lot for Collins writing that she allows her readers to rush through an unfamiliar world without feeling lost. I think this is because of the strength of the main character, and we follow her bewilderment at the entire situation.

Second reason: the main character is great. Actually, I think all of the characters are great. I love that Collins is able to write first person point of view so well. First of all, first person is hard to do well. I think that is one of my main gripes about that aforementioned series is that the main character is not someone I can slip myself into (that sounds so dirty), and in the first person point of view, that character is vital. I can’t fathom Collins ability to show us how other characters feel when the main character is oblivious to them herself. I don’t know if non-writers will be as impressed as I was, but, I respect the writing immensely.

Third reason: it is a dystopian  novel. I love me a good dystopian novel. I read Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut in 10th grade and I have been hooked since. (Dystopias novels about worlds that are heavily controlled by the state under the premise of protecting the people. Some good examples are 1984, Brave New World, or Demolition Man though it is technically a movie.) Not only is it a dystopian novel, but it is a dystopian novel for GIRLS. The only other dystopian book for women  I can think of is Hand Maid’s Tale, but The Hunger Games is written for teenage girls. I can’t express how amazing it is that there is a sharp, politically relevant, gritty, smart book written for the teenage female audience. I would have killed for this when I was a teenager.

I guess I really, really dug the book. I didn’t realize how much until I started writing about it. Now, just to get my hands on the other two.

 
Share
by

Books of all Sorts.

I finished my rough draft of my book at 3:13am Monday.

I wrote a freaking book…. in two months

I slept all day Monday and came to Tina’s on Tuesday.  I missed her family and I needed to back in touch with reality. I WROTE A FUCKING BOOK. I forget that sometimes then when I remember, I get all awesome feeling again.

So I need to say again, I have amazing friends. Kathleen is an incredible writing partner and I owe so much to her. Tina supported me and listened to me babble about my book. Actually all of my friends rock. Thank you guys so much.

So I made a decision to buy a cookbook and start cooking more. I eat a lot of processed food and I had no idea how to cook much without using a lot of prepackaged food. I baked bread today. I managed not to screw it up. I had a blast making it and it tastes great. I might have a new hobby in baking. (I think I have Christmas present ideas.)

I miss writing. I have three more books in my head I need to write.

I am just so happy.

Yes, I drank the kool-aid.

 

Oh, a parting thought:

Samantha: What do unicorns eat?

Tina: Each other, that is why they are extinct.

 
Share
by

Getting What You Asked For

So today I checked my spam box (my self worth directly correlates to the amount of comments I get on my site, spam included) and I found that a a guy spamming for penis enlarging pills felt that my blog was pretty good but it needed more images. I take terrible photos no matter how good the camera so I normally don’t bother but when the penis enlargement guy asks for pictures, by god, you give him pictures. I dug out the twenty dollar piece of crap camera I bought months ago and put batteries in it and took pictures. I only took pictures of stuff in my room because I was too lazy to take pictures anywhere else.

I get the feeling no one will ever request photos again.

zomg a book shelf

I have two book shelves. This is the least crappy one

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where ALL of the MAGIC happens. One day when I am famous this desk will be worth MILLIONS

This is my beat up scary bookshelf tha is full of shit and about to collapse any second

Another bookshelf

Just because I love redundancy

 

Table beside my bed

Did I mention my camera was terrible?

 
Share
by

Biff, Minty Fresh, and Santa’s Little Helper of Death

I have a very quirky sense of humor. I find odd and random things funny as anyone who knows me or has read my more personal stuff knows. I find meaning in strange things and I sometimes get the feeling that I might live in a different reality than most folks. I appreciate these qualities in books I read too.

Santa's Little Helper of Death

The book that started my obsession

Christopher Moore understands me and my sense of humor.

Actually, my mom started me on Christoper Moore. She had picked up “Blood Sucking Fiends” and fell in love with his humor and we started reading everything of his we could get our hands on. “Blood Sucking Fiends” is a brilliantly funny take on a vampire book. I think it is actually more relevant now that we have been inundated with the teenage girl vampire infatuation trend. It is a vampire love story but not like anything a twilitard would swoon over.

So, anyway, I loved “Blood Sucking Fiends” but when I picked up “A Dirty Job” I knew Christopher Moore was actually a demi-god of humor gracing our planet with his tales of humor and delight. This book so clearly defined for me everything I would come to love of Moore’s quirky and touching perspective. The book is a story of a man who finds himself suddenly a widow and a single father and, oh yeah, becomes a Santa’s Little Helper of Death. This book started my obsession with all things Christopher Moore.

He is like all writers. He has some fan-freaking-tastic books and some just awesome books. I haven’t read a book by him that I didn’t find funny and interesting and even his “worst” book is still better a lot of books you can pick up but he has some truly exceptional books that provide an unique perspective into something meaningful.

Two of his books really exemplify this for me: “A Dirty Job” and “Lamb.” While “A Dirty Job” is funny and crazy in it’s circumstances, it is also an oddly sensitive look at relationships, family, grief, and adjusting to life as it throws crap at you like monkeys at the zoo of fate. The main character isn’t a super human or really special in anyway except that he has a big heart and does his best to do what is right.

“Lamb” is the story of Biff, Jesus’s childhood BFF. This story has so many places where it could have sent very wrong in the hands of a mere mortal but in the hands Christopher Moore it managed to be something truly special. This book is not a book for someone who has no sense of humor about their faith but I do think someone with faith and a sense of humor can read this book and enjoy it. Moore attempts to show us what is good about Jesus through the very human eyes of Biff. It doesn’t pretend to be realistic or even sacred, but I felt like he was truly trying to show the love and forgiveness that most of us have heard about our entire lives. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone but I think the right people have a real chance of seeing something meaningful while still funny.

Okay, I can’t not talk about Christopher Moore and not talk about two of my other things about his books, okay well maybe it is one thing with two parts. His books create a unique world in a modern realistic setting. One of the ways he does this is by using the same characters and the same settings in various books. He develops side characters in different books so they add something just by simply being there. For example, there is a character named Minty Fresh, whose father was a dentist, in several of the books. He could have been easily a static comic character, he is a very large black man who dresses in mint green, but throughout several books you learn more about him and he is a certain treat for people who read all of Moore’s books. Moore also manages to do this with his books set in San Fransisco. He creates side characters that weave in and out of his San Fransico books and sometimes you even catch a glimpse of a main character from one book dashing in and out of Moore’s other books.

In summation, Christopher Moore is awesome. You should read his books. They are funny in strange way. Read Him!

 
Share
by

Albinos and Dragons

Albinos and dragons are a great start to any great trilogy. Throw into the mix two royal bastards, a telepathic mentally handicap man of large proportions, and vikings and the series is sure to win.

First book in the Tawny Man TrilogyThe Tawny Man series by Robin Hobb

Okay let me digress a bit then I will come back to point.

So I know I didn’t go into much detail about the first trilogy because I believe it is like telling some Bruce Willis’s character is dead and that is a sin. I can’t imagine trying to read the Tawny Man books without having read the Farseer series. Don’t try. Not only will you not have much of a clue what is going on but it is also just bad form. Hobb has another trilogy in between these two called the Liveship Traders. They are kind of related but I read them after I read Tawny Man and I did just fine. Liveship is freaking cool and I highly suggest picking it up if you like the first trilogy. I am a bit of a purist though, I read everything in order if I can.

Anyway, the Tawny Man books start with our hero Fitz being emo and pouting in a remote cabin with a kid he randomly found and adopted. Fitz had a rough go of it in the last trilogy and decided to go live a simple life. He is writing some histories and farming. Then the Fool shows up and screws it all up.

In the first books, the Fool was an ambiguous character that Hobb left still shrouded in mystery. He was this colorless person whom didn’t seem quite human that always talked in riddles in the beginning of the books. By the end we find out a little more about him but we all had a lot of unanswered questions.

So the Fool shows up on Fitz’s doorstep and he has obviously changes. He is now more golden of color and is more richly dressed. When I read the books the first time I felt that he was constantly internally sighing at Fitz’s self centered moaning. He is basically one of the main forces that gets Fitz out of his lethargy.

Another transgression is order. I don’t think it will ruin anything by saying that Fitz lived and at the end of the first series there is a pregnant queen left in charge of the country. Also, in the first series they were fighting a terrible cult that had used terror to take control of a people called Outislanders. I bet you can guess that Fitz and his crew wins.

So years later when the Tawny Man picks up the queen has a royal son. She is a good queen, yadda yadda yadda. They have increased relations with the Outislanders (whom I will now call the vikings) instead of keeping hostilities going. Well in order to help promote relations the queen promises said royal son to a daughter of a powerful viking clan. All hell breaks lose.

I loved the first trilogy but this one is even better. I think a big part of this is because I am so in love with the Fool and Hobb focuses heavily on the relationship between Fitz and the Fool. Actually, all of the relationships are more complicated in this trilogy, I think Hobb knows these characters better for this trilogy and Fitz is older and a more complicated character so his perceptions and feelings have more depth.

 
Share
by

My Trip to the Library Today.

Today was a crazy busy day and that is why I am not writing this until 8pm. I predict the next two weeks will be pretty crazy. This week I promise to get all the posts up on the normal days but I make no promises about what time I will post them. The week of March 21st through the 24th I can’t even promise that I will post anything at all. Anyway, I went to the library today and I checked out eight books, even though I know I will have to call and renew them, because I wanted three series that I have wanted to revisit. Two of them are connected and I think would make an excellent book blog.

First Book of the Farseer TrilogyRobin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy

I have read ten Robin Hobb books consisting of three trilogies and the first book of a fourth series and all of them are connected in a fantastic world she first introduces us to in her Farseer Trilogy.

Assassin’s Apprentice is the first book in the trilogy and in it we meet the series unlikely hero (I am a sucker for an unlikely hero) and most of the cast of characters that many will span through two separate series. (One character manages to be in three series.) She also introduces the readers to the world that this and another series takes in along with the magic that this world contains.

The hero of this series is FitzChivalry Farseer, who is a bastard son of a dead favored prince. The reader meets Fitz as a little kid after he gets left to the royal family. No one really knows what to do with him so he is left to be raised by his father’s stable man, Burrich. His grandfather, King Shrewd, sees the potential tool he has in Fitz and also the potential danger inherent in having a dissatisfied bastard heir. Shrewd makes a deal with Fitz to take care of and educate Fitz in return for Fitz’s loyalty. Shrewd decides to train Fitz to be the assassin for the crown.

First, I love that the hero is a bastard and is trained in an unusual way. Most books would have Fitz (FitzChivalry, by the way, is not really a name but more of a label meaning bastard Of Chivalry) be a rightful king with his rightful throne stolen from him by some evil plot. Fitz is a bastard and Hobb unapologetically write a world that does not leave him much room to take the throne. I also love that Fitz is trained to be an assassin. It takes away any pretty veneer of polite court politics. I think it makes her books much more believable.

Second, I love the magic in this world. Robin Hobb write a world with two forms of magic and plays with the idea of a high magic and a low magic.  The high magic is the magic that is supposedly linked to the Farseer royal line and it is best described as telepathy. Anyone who has this magic can see events or influence minds of people far away. They can also control the perceptions of others. The low magic is a beast magic that allows the person to “hear” what animals are thinking and develop a rudimentary connection with most animals and it also for someone with it to connect deeply with on animal allowing for a type of symbiosis with them. This magic is considered wrong and shameful. People who can develop these links are often burned at the stake. As expected, shit hits the fan when Fitz develops this magic.

My favorite thing about this trilogy, though, is the characters. Many books have a great central hero but have weak supporting characters. Robin Hobb makes her supporting characters just as memorable as Fitz. I actually am far more in love with Burrich and the Fool than I am Fitz. Burrich is Fitz’s main caretaker and his replacement father figure. He is gruff and drinks too much and sometimes has rough manners but Burrich has a heart that won’t quit. It becomes clear early on that Burrich is an honorable man that will do anything to protect and care for those he loves.

The Fool is in three of her trilogies because he is just that interesting of a character. THrough much of the Farseer trilogy he is a bit of an enigma. He is the albino court fool for King Shrewd and he seems ageless and sometimes even his gender is ambiguous. As he takes a larger part in the events around Fitz you realize that he is a lot more than he seems.

So I had planned on writing about the second trilogy that all of these characters live in but I think now, after seeing the length of this blog, that I save it for Tuesday.

 
Share
by

Those Certain Books

I have many, many favorite books. (I was about to go into an semi-apologetic spiel about how my use of the word favorite is incorrect there because favorite is a superlative therefore there cannot be multiples but then I went and got my learn on and found out that favorite is not superlative. I don’t know why I felt the need to share this except that I am sometimes amazed by how my own thought processes work.)

Anyway, I think I am like many avid readers that I have many books that I love and can read multiple times. I have books that engross me or highly entertain me. There are authors I have read everything I can get my hands on or have series that I read like a starving man eats. I have series that I have read several times but I can’t read out of order because I might know what happens but I love the way things unfold that it just pisses me off to not read them in the order the author wrote them.  If given the opportunity to by all the books I loved, I would get Border’s Bookstores out of bankruptcy. But, with as many books as I love, I still have a few certain books that mean more to me than other books.

I know everyone has those certain songs that came a long at the right time in their lives when they needed to hear whatever the song was about. For example, Modest Mouse’s “Float On” came a long when I was going through a period of struggle and confusion. The song’s simple message of just keeping moving through the crap because sooner or later life is bound to get better was exactly what I needed to hear. Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days” is an other example because certain lyrics remind me so much of what it was like to suddenly realize I was madly, insanely, deeply in love.

I have books like that. There are a few books to which I have a deep emotional connection. I am not going to go into great detail about them in this post because I think they deserve their own separate posts but I felt I needed to explain the difference between these books and my regular favorite books.

I love Robin Hobb books, especially the the books with The Fool in them. They are fascination stories. Her concept of magic is fascinating. Her characters are interesting and easy to get emotionally involved with. I think about the world she paints constantly. None of her books are those certain books for me.

So what makes those books become one of the pivotal books for me? I think it is because certain books either teach me something about myself or help me choose who I want to be. I can pick up these pivotal books and get something meaningful from them every time.  When I go to the library next week I will probably check out a slew of Brent Week’s  books and it will be like slipping into something familiar and warm but I won’t find the same meaning as I will when I reread “To Kill a Mockingbird” again. Scout teaches me something new and wonderful and horrible about people every time.

Does it make any more sense yet? It really doesn’t to me either but maybe after a few posts I will be able to make it clear.

 
Share
by

Genre Talk: Fantasy

Modesitt

The first book in the series I am currently reading.

So, this might shock some of you but my favorite genre is fantasy.  I know some of you never saw that coming because I *seem* the type to like fantasy but I think fantasy gets a bad rep.

Interjection: before I even begin discussing fantasy I need to lay down one thing. Fantasy and Science Fiction are not the same thing. They may seem like it it to the non-nerd but they are different genres with different elements  that rarely intermingle.  You are not going to see a space ship in a fantasy novel. Saturday’s blog is going to be about sci-fi.

So here is the stereotype: some young man goes dashing off on a horse to save some beautiful and helpless dame. Along the way, he finds a few people to help him with his quest. Most often he also finds that he has some magical powers. In essence, this is the basic plot line of almost every fantasy story ever written. It does not mean fantasy is bad.

Anyone who has ever heard me talk about writing at any length knows I hold certain beliefs about writing. One of those beliefs is that there are a limited number of plots in this world. If anyone reads enough books across enough genres they begin to see that in actuality all of the stories they read share core elements with each other. The only difference between books is the details the author puts into the books.

Lemme break it down in a different way. In literature there is the concept of the archetype. Archetypes are sort of a common theme or element that is common in all writing, kind of like universal metaphors. They range from things like the great flood (look at how many cultures have great flood stories) to the journey of the hero. (Joseph Campbell is the king of the hero’s journey but he gets his own paragraph.) I had a professor in college, Dr. Kelley Logan, who was focused on the psychological elements of the works we studied. She also happened to be a Jungian, who named archetypes. Before her class, I had noticed them but I hadn’t fully understood what they were or their importance.

Anyway, one of the most common archetypes is the hero’s journey.  Another thing my education introduced to me is Joseph Campbell. He was a mythologist (I am pretty sure I made that word up) that wrote a this fantastic book about the commonality of heroes across cultures. What he outlined is the basic format for every single fantasy novel I have ever read.  This does not mean that fantasy is unoriginal but I think it means that it appeals to the same primal part of some of us that enjoy metaphor and the fantastic.One a great side note, George Lucas recorded at Skywalker Ranch many videos of Joseph Campbell talking about his life’s work because it inspired so much of Star Wars. The videos are amazing and made me rethink a lot of my assumptions about my world.

I love fantasy because it allows the same story to be told but with great creative elements. They are all the same coming of age tales that we see in books about any real world decade but they have more metaphor and creativity. I also think it takes a quite a bit of skill to make a character relate able if they can wield magic or are masters of strange arcane things like sword fighting or anything else you would see at a renaissance fair.

Okay time for another interjection. There is this common idea that all fantasy takes place in some medieval setting with horses and swords. This is just high fantasy as I understand it. Some fantasy, known as modern fantasy, take place in more modern settings. They just have to involve some element of magic or of the fantastic. Some of my favorite books and authors are modern fantasy writers. I am not going to go into a lot of specifics because I know I will want to write about them at greater length later in the month but a few stellar examples of fantasy writers are Neil Gaimon, Jim Butcher, or Christopher Moore.

I just reread over this and I think I have rambled enough for today. I promise there shall be more later.

 

 
Share