harborshore | Entries tagged with books

Thank you everyone for your TV show recs! I ended up giving my brother a multiple choice card based on some of your suggestions and some of my own, and now he gets to pick one. He was super super pleased.

I'm hopelessly behind with my book recs. I've read so many books this year, and I can't remember where I left off. But.

I thought I'd do a short post about the books I read recently, and then, if you wish, we could trade book recs? Which means you ask me for book recs based on three books you like and also rec me something. I did that once before, and it was lots of fun.

( Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta )

( Love Walked in and sequel by Marisa De Los Santos )

( How the soldier repairs the gramophone by Sasa Stanisic )

( Another Time by Auden )

( Tamburlaine by Marlowe )

ETA: Also, I have read nearly everything Robin McKinley has ever written and I can tell you that it is all excellent.

Now you! Rec me a book and/or tell me three books you like so I can tell you a book you might like in return.

I want to write about Diana Wynne Jones. I want to write about castles in the air and castles that move and raising the land and dragons and girls who are awkward and boys who need eight cups of coffee before they're awake enough to be able to function and adults who aren't completely useless and more dragons and dwarfs and griffins and wizards and woods that aren't quite right and--

But all the words are gone. There won't be any more books. I'm going to quote Neil Gaiman, from here: There was only one Diana Wynne Jones, and the world was a finer one for having her in it. We miss you, Diana, we miss you so much. I know you and Astrid are having the best tea party ever right about now, but oh, I miss the stories we never got from you.

I read six books in Amsterdam! I reviewed one of them already, oh my heart, and here are the other five plus the one I've read since I came back.

24. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

( fiction! by turns terribly sad and beautiful, by turns funny and a bit cold )

25. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

( fiction--this book has a RIDICULOUS ending: surprise!genre switch, ahaha )

26. Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

( fiction! could not stop laughing. could not. )

27. Three plays by Christopher Fry. ♥

( one with Biblical references, one about strength of spirit under difficult circumstances, and one about Henry, Becket and Eleanor of Aquitaine )

28. Passage by Connie Willis.

( a very good book, but it's impossible to talk about this much without spoiling it )

29. Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith.

( the most gorgeous, queer, sweetest gem of a book I've found in a while--and a lesbian love story with a happy ending )

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. Warning for discussion of sexual assault and war crimes under cut. Also warning for commentary that is not very coherent.

( or else the heart, concealing it, should break )

This entry is a demonstration of why it is hard for me to keep up regular book reviews when I'm reading at my normal pace. These are the books I've read in the last four weeks. Most of them were read in a week and a half. Also, I'm sure I've forgotten one or two. Augh. But I'm going to make an effort to keep this going, and in order to catch up, here are some one-sentence reviews of these books. Feel free to ask questions if you want to know more about any of them! Or if you want quotes. I'm valiantly resisting quoting from all of them or I would be here ALL NIGHT, but I am happy to provide quotes if you ask.

Mild spoilers for some of the books, but generally nothing you wouldn't get from reading the blurb, except for when I'm warning for something.

( 7. Tigers at Awhitu by Sarah Broom )

( 8. Smoke and Shadows by Tanya Huff )

( 9. Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff )

( 10. Smoke and Ashes by Tanya Huff )

( 11. Blackout by Connie Willis )

( 12. All Clear by Connie Willis )

( 13. A Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer )

( 14. Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer )

These are getting longer, sigh. Let me try to rein myself in.

( 15. Break, Blow, Burn by Camille Paglia )

( 16. A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf )

( 17. The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck )

( 18. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie )

( 19. The Lady's Not For Burning by Christopher Fry )

( 20. I Have The Right To Destroy Myself by Young-Ha Kim )

( 21. The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones )

ETA: I knew I'd forgotten at least one!

( 22. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin )

Previous reviews: Free Love by Ali Smith | Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey | The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera | Libyrinth by Pearl North | Ash by Malinda Lo | The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

kyasuriin took a throwaway comment I made and started up a really cool meme. We agreed on the fact that the list that was going around a while ago was insufficient and narrowly focused, so here is the beginning of another one.

Look at the list below. These are the books that someone found valuable. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you started or have read bits of, italicize the ones you want to read. Add your own five books and pass it along)

1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2. Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
3. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
4. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
6. A Little Love Song by Michelle Magorian [for being rather awesome about the whole woman thing]
7. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard [for talking about love without talking about it much]
8. Ronia the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren [because she practices not being afraid]
9. Earthsea series by Ursula K. LeGuin [because the heroes aren't always white and because truth is never simple but sometimes beautiful and because real freedom does save you when magic can't]
10. Women and Apple Trees by Moa Martinsson [because it knocked me flat with awesome]

EVERYONE should do this. Especially

thesamefire and

sinuous_curve and

emilytheodd, because all of you complained about the canon, but I want all of your valuable books. So, like, if you enjoy reading (

oddishly,

blindmouse,

softlyforgotten etc.), you should do this. GIVE THEM TO ME. Or tell me what they are, I don't mean literally give them to me.

I totally do.