Tag Archives: books

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted by melydia on September 28, 2010 4 comments

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (unabridged audiobook read by George Guidall): Why is this book so long? Seriously. About halfway through I checked out the plot summary on Wikipedia and I was surprised to discover I was following along fairly well. But that doesn’t explain why it takes so much text to tell this story. Basically, this guy kills an unpleasant pawnbroker and her sister, guy’s mother and sister visit because sister is supposed to marry some shady dude, guy’s best friend falls in love with sister, random drunk dude dies, random drunk dude’s daughter befriends guy, and meanwhile an obnoxiously chatty detective is investigating the deaths of the unpleasant pawnbroker and her sister. (I can’t count the number of times I said, “Shut up, Porfiry!”) Oh yeah, and there’s angst. Lots and lots of angst. Don’t worry about the names – I had a terrible time keeping track of who was who because everybody had at least three names and all of them were so complicated they immediately fell out of my head the first fifty or so times I encountered them. I still can’t remember most of them well enough to say them aloud. The story is told mostly in dialogue, almost enough to be a play, so I’m surprised there haven’t been more recent film adaptations. Anyway, this is a decently interesting story – full of intrigue and suspense, with a sweet ending – except that at times I wondered if the author was paid by the word. For example, he described the letter guy got from shady dude, then guy confronts shady dude about the letter and recounts his reaction to said letter, then later guy recounts his confrontation with shady dude about the letter to others. And this is hardly an isolated incident: several scenes are described in their entirety multiple times. I guess it’s good if you weren’t paying enough attention, but dude! Hire an editor!

(Yes, I am well aware that I am going to Literary Hell for telling Dostoevsky to hire an editor. Dickens and Austen could use one too.)

(My toes are getting warm.)

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi

Posted by melydia on September 27, 2010 None comments

Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi: This was my first graphic novel in quite a while. The art style was very simple, like it had been drawn with black Sharpie, yet amazingly expressive. The framework is of a group of women (the author and her relatives) sharing tales of past relationships. Some of them are funny, some are sad, but all are memorable. It’s also a very quick read; I finished it in a single sitting. I’m not sure so sure it needed to be a graphic novel – most of the drawings are just of women’s faces speaking – but it worked well in this format all the same. I’ll be on the lookout for Satrapi’s more famous work, Persepolis.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Banned Books Week 2010: September 25 – October 2

Posted by melydia on September 24, 2010 None comments

Starting tomorrow, we once again celebrate Banned Books Week. I don’t generally attend any events, but it’s a good reminder that there are those people out there who want to choose what you or your child may and may not read. The official site has some great activity ideas and a fascinating map of where books have been recently banned. Its a lot more geographically spread out than I’d expected.

When we were reading Beloved by Toni Morrison in high school, one of the other area schools banned it over a single paragraph (if you’ve read it, you know which one), to which we all rolled our eyes. I didn’t particularly enjoy reading Beloved and I would have loved to have not been assigned it, but I didn’t see any purpose for the ban. If you can’t handle adult literature by the time you’re 16, you probably shouldn’t be taking a literature course so advanced that you’re assigned books on the level of Beloved.

My personal experience with banned books is fairly limited. I mean, I’ve read plenty of them, but I usually didn’t know they were challenged beforehand.  I’ve only read two of the books on the top ten most frequently challenged list. (Side note: it amuses me how almost all of them claim to be “unsuited” for the age group, because evidently children cannot think for themselves until they start college.) Come to think of it, I don’t even have any banned books on my TBR pile. Huh.

To celebrate, I’ll probably release some banned books into the wild. Let people make up their own minds about whether or not to read them.

P.S. – Oh hey, that top ten list was from 2008. I’ve read six of the entries from 2009. How about you?
P.P.S. – How cute are these bracelets!

Busy Busy Weekend

Posted by melydia on September 20, 2010 None comments

This coming Saturday, September 25, is the annual National Book Festival, put on by the Library of Congress on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., each September. It’s tons of fun and every year they attract loads of marvelous authors. This year’s line-up includes Elizabeth Kostova, Suzanne Collins, Katherine Paterson, and so many others. In addition, they’re reprising their Pavilion of the States, where the public library systems from every state and territory have tables and information (and free stuff).

On top of all this fun, that day is also the annual cross-site meet-up for BookCrossing and LibraryThing, many of whom are members of both sites. We’re meeting at 2:00 PM on the steps of the Natural History Museum. It’s always a great time with lots of chatter and laughter. Please join us!

I, however, will not be attending this great yearly event. I will be off in Pennsylvania at the Celtic Classic. We used to go every year, but it’s been a while. (I think the last time we went was in 2006.) It’s a gigantic free Celtic music and games festival. It’s full of bands, games, parades, dancing, competitions, and other entertainment, and best of all it’s free admission. I’m really looking forward to it.

By the by, if neither of those are your bag, the Maryland Renaissance Festival is still open every weekend till late October. Go ye, and be merry!

Upcoming Farewell Blog Tour

Posted by melydia on September 17, 2010 None comments

Linda Raven Moore, professional writer and founder of my much-beloved Markeroni, is hosting a Farewell Blog Tour for her book, A Little Twist of Texas. I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It’s basically a motorcycle travelogue with BookCrossing, Markeroni, and serendipity thrown in. Besides a month-long blog tour throughout October (of which Utter Randomonium will be taking part), Linda is offering copies of her book at a serious discount. I would love to buy a box, go on a road trip, and release them all along the way, but alas, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Anyway, stop by her blog, pick up a copy, participate in the blog tour, and watch this space for an upcoming guest post!

Time of the Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Posted by melydia on September 15, 2010 None comments

Time of the Twins (Dragonlance Legends #1) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman: It’s been years since I read the Chronicles trilogy, but I managed not to stay lost for too much of this book. (I do, however, strongly recommend one reads that trilogy before starting this one.) Basically this is Weis and Hickman accepting that Raistlin is the only truly interesting character in Chronicles and throwing in the second-most interesting, Tasslehoff, for good measure. Raistlin is hungry for power, and believes he can get it by traveling back in time to before the Cataclysm. His twin brother, Caramon, is sent after him, along with religious nut cleric Crysania, who finds herself strangely drawn to Raistlin. Tasslehoff joins them, much to the horror of everyone, because kender are nothing but Trouble. All in all, I rather liked this book. I doubt I would have if I didn’t like Raistlin so much, as I spent most of the book wanting to punch Caramon in the face. As has been noted by many, this is unquestionably written for young adults. If you know that going in, you’ll probably enjoy it more. I look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Immortal Ones by John F. Ferrer

Posted by melydia on September 13, 2010 None comments

The Immortal Ones by John F. Ferrer: Derek lives a life of horror-movie fantasies until he meets a girl at a club and those horror movie monsters turn out to be real. Overnight his life is turned upside-down. Though there is a fair bit of action, the love polygon is the backbone of the story. Werewolves love vampires; vampires love humans; humans love werewolves; it’s all just a mess. There are definitely echoes of Twilight here, but with more sex and less angst. The vampire and werewolf mythos are a little different from the traditional as well. Like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampires look like ordinary (though beautiful) humans until they get angry or hungry, at which point their faces “crack” and the fangs come out. Werewolves are pretty much hairy vampires: they also wolf out under stress, live forever, and drink blood. Both species can learn to keep their respective transformations under control. Both have a preference for human blood but can survive on the less tasty blood of animals. Werewolves, however, like vampire blood best of all, and are arguably the only thing (besides the sun) that can kill a vampire. (Whether or not a werewolf can be killed remains to be seen.) The other twists are more subtle: gold (not silver) hurts werewolves, and vampires (but not werewolves) are weakened by wolfsbane. (To be fair, Dracula was kept out by wolfsbane.)

Like many self-published books, this one is in desperate need of a good editor. The author clearly has a basic misunderstanding of punctuation. For most of the story I felt less like I was reading a story than having one described to me. The main characters were all fairly interchangeable in terms of personality, but I did enjoy a couple of the minor walk-ons, like Hank from the jazz club and Emma from the bookstore. I could easily see and hear them in my mind. So would I recommend this particular book? Well, no, but I do see promise in Ferrer. He has good ideas, and proper execution can be taught. I look forward to seeing what he can do with time, training, and a really good editor.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

More Pet Peeves

Posted by melydia on September 10, 2010 10 comments

Check out the original list. Evidently I’m not done yet. Here are some more tips for writers who want to avoid irritating me their readers:

  • Avoid repetitive statements. He shrugged his shoulders. What else, pray tell, can one shrug?
  • Give your characters distinct names. I don’t mean unusual, necessarily, just noticeably different from each other. Once I had to quit a book after only a few chapters because I couldn’t keep Johnny, Jack, Jackie, Jerry, and Jimmy straight in my head. (No, I’m not making that up.)
  • Be consistent with your names. It’s fine to refer to Jack Smith as either “Jack” or as “Smith”. You can even call him “Smith” in the narration and “Jack” in the dialog from time to time. Just don’t switch back and forth constantly. Pick one and stick with it.
  • Have someone read your book aloud to you, preferably someone who’s never seen it before. Make notes while you listen, but don’t read along. Realize that this monotone is how every reader will “hear” your book in their head.
  • Careful with description. If the clouds around the mountain have nothing to do with moving the story forward, don’t spend three paragraphs on them. Readers don’t want to be stuck in a white room, but we also don’t care about the cuckoo clock’s personal history unless it becomes important later.
  • If you want to write a movie, write a movie. Don’t write a book. I cannot stress this enough.

Any more I’m forgetting?

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Posted by melydia on September 7, 2010 2 comments

Foundation by Isaac Asimov (unabridged audiobook read by Scott Brick): It is rare that I read a story set so far in the future that Earth is practically a myth. This basically means that you can set up human society to be whatever you wish, without the burdens of the history known by the reader. In this case, the human race has grown into a massive galactic empire. Hari Seldon is a prominent psychohistorian, who uses his studies of the past to predict the future. Specifically, he predicts the collapse of the empire, and claims to be creating a great Encyclopedia Galactica to save all the knowledge of man in order to ease the transition after the fall. Frightened by the idea of civil unrest in response to this foretelling, Seldon and his people are exiled to Terminus, a planet far out on the rim of the galaxy. The rest of the book chronicles the next two centuries or so. Much of it was a little slow, since I’m not much for politics, but I very much enjoyed Mayor Hardin. I have the second book in the trilogy on my shelf, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to it. On the one hand, I’m not in any hurry to return to the universe of Foundation, but on the other, the longer I wait the less I’ll remember about Foundation, which will probably make Foundation and Empire more difficult to follow. Heh.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Posted by melydia on August 31, 2010 None comments

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: I picked this up because a friend highly recommended it, saying it was one of her favorite books of all time. Basically, the narrator comes across a classified ad in the newspaper advertising a teacher in search of a student with an interest in saving the world. The narrator, who was too young to join the hippie movement but was nonetheless enchanted by their ideals, looks up this teacher out of curiosity. From then on the book is almost entirely their sessions together, learning about the mythology of the “Taker” and “Leaver” cultures, respectively, and how to “save the world”. I alternated between interest in the story and exasperation at the preaching. The ending was too predictable and too convenient, but I’m not sure how else it could have ended. As for the philosophy, well, it certainly wasn’t a life-changing experience for me. I was left with too many questions. Living in harmony with the planet is certainly a worthy endeavor, but never are issues addressed like, for example, travel. Transportation requires a disruption of the natural order: trees and animal habitats must be swept away to lay roads, runways, and rails. Sure, it’s easier to adapt to your surroundings if you never go anywhere, but such isolation also sows xenophobia and superstition. This is not to say we shouldn’t strive to coexist peacefully with the rest of nature, or that it is our right and duty to reshape the world to suit our purposes. Not at all. I just felt that the arguments presented here were incomplete. They also propose that we who have plenty should not aid those suffering from famine and drought. I understand the idea behind it – it will just lead to overpopulation and more famine in the future – but I am not comfortable with the lack of compassion.

All that said, I must give this book high marks for giving me quite a lot to think about. Its insufficient arguments and somewhat ham-fisted narrative style aside, it made me ponder things I’d never even considered in the past. It instilled in me a desire to research the ideas presented in order to form my own opinions on subjects I never knew were up for debate. I certainly recommend it to anyone in search of a thought-provoking read.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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