Books in '07 - a review log

[Novice]

Originally Posted by Lani

ah the book is fantastic, read it before the 8ths episode because the 8th episode is apparently the one that ties in the book.

You just need to get the audio books which JAMES MARSTERS reads it. Mmmm Spike.

LOL! With his fake english accent.... hee hee!
I'm hoping that she'll carry on taping them for me.... I don't have cable/satelite.... (we're (re-)building the house we live in so nowhere to put a satelite.... )
And I pushed the boat out & ordered all 7 books..... *giggle* I just hope I like them..... (I'l read pretty much anything!)

[Lani]

wow! all of them hey? hope you got a lot of time on your hands. lol.

I'm sure you will love them. How could you not?

[Novice]

Originally Posted by Lani

wow! all of them hey? hope you got a lot of time on your hands. lol.

I'm sure you will love them. How could you not?

LOADS!!!! I can't wait to start them, its actually cheered me up. I ended up having 'bed rest' a couple of weeks ago (after surgery) so I'm still taking it a bit easy (no driving for TWO more weeks...). I can make excuses to do nothing but read..... :-D

[Lani]

especially when the reading involves a certain wizzard

[Novice]

Originally Posted by Lani

especially when the reading involves a certain wizzard

Lani!!!! I was woken this morning by the postie braying on the door! My book The Historian has arrived, I reckon that I'll have finished it by the time the Dresden Files books arrive later in the week! I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks for the logs, I like your choices as they appear to be varied! This is much better than the book reviews in cosmo etc. I really don't "get" chicklit!

[Lani]

chicklit is so boring *yawn*

I'm just a book worm, I give anything a chance really. Now I just gotta find some new books to read. lol

[Lani]

Book 11
Book Title: Fool Moon (book 2 of The Dresden Files)
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Fantasy/Crime
# of pages: 400
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
Well, not exactly the wizard at the top of the children's reading list - closer to X-Files with a bit of humor. However, this is an imaginative spin on the ever after battle of good vs. evil, with the wizard Harry Dresden (who isn't really 'nother one Harry grown up). Unique and darkly magical, the author
obviously has a grand time weaving a scary spell of a story, having license to throw in ... unexpected elements. Harry Dresden walks a fine line between the Nevernever and the criminal side of Chicago, practicing his idiosyncratic magical talents within the boundaries and principles of each world. Will he forfeit his own mortality for the greater good? Humorous or seriously scary, the adventures of this wizard named Harry are close enough to life to make you wonder at times. Haphazard and hard on electronics, Harry has issues with cars, computers, as well as a fat cat named Mister (that the author gets Just Right with the "mrow" and the wizard tumping shoulder butt) and a nasty minded skull named Bob. Alchemy and potions, demons and handcuffs, maybe a little too much - but clever. I enjoyed it and look forward to Fool Moon.

My Thoughts:
I really really loved this book. IT made me go ‘hm’ at the tv series in a big way. Warewolves have Harry in a spin in this book. Only there are 3 Warewolf gangs, 3 types of warewolves, The FBI, gangsters and a creater from the nevernever. Oh and a bunch of kids all ready to get into the fight.

Book #12
Book Title: Dead Untill Dark (a Sookie Stakehouse Mystery)
Author: Charlaine Harris
Genre: Fantasy/Mystery/Romance
# of pages: 304
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: C
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
Having an affair with a vampire has one main benefit for Sookie. Her predilection for reading minds doesn't seem to work with him. But as is common with vampires, violence follows in his wake, and she becomes afraid that she might be more than just a spectator. Christine Marshall takes on a drawl that hints of Louisiana as she narrates for Sookie and the other female characters. She is joined by William Dufris, who assumes the role of the vampire, as well as the other male characters. Marshall and Dufris work well together, maintaining a steady rhythm in the narrative passages and dialogue. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

My Thoughts:
It’s a cute book. I did enjoy reading it. I don’t think I was in the mood for it at the time though. On a secred read I found it far more enjoyable. I liked the vampire lore in this book and I found it fun.

Book #13
Book Title: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of ChristmasTerror
Author: Christopher Moore
Genre: Comedy
# of pages: 320
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A++
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.

But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.

Move over, Charles Dickens -- it's Christopher Moore time.

My Thoughts: You know you’re in trouble when your librarian says ‘you know what christopher moore book reminds me of you? The stupidest angel..there’s this character in there called molly…’. I read this in 3 hours flat, giggled my way through it, read it again and just wished that it wouldn’t end so damn quickly.

[Novice]

Come on Lani, catch up!
I'm just about to finish "Grave Peril" (bk 3) by Jim Butcher.
It involved ghosties & a Big Bloke with a ****-off sword called Michael (the man not the sword, the sword is called Amoracchius). It revisits a previous case & is more about Harry & Michael than Murphy!
I've got about 75 pages to go & have got a little bogged down as I've not been reading as much.... but I'm still desperate to know what happens!

[Lani]

I will catch up - just as soon as I have money and the ability to get my ass to borders to purchase the damn book!

[Lani]

Book #14
Book Title: The Boleyn inheritance
Author: Phillipa Gregory
Genre: Historical Fiction
# of pages: 528
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: C
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII's court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry's fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king—an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves's decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford's madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naïve 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory's accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory's sharp staging of how and why.

My Thoughts:
I found it really hard to get into, but once I did it became too fast of a read. I loved being transported back to that time and place. Has nothing on the first book, however.

Book #15
Book Title: Anansi Boys
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Mythology/ Humour
# of pages: 416
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
If readers found the Sandman series creator's last novel, American Gods, hard to classify, they will be equally nonplussed—and equally entertained—by this brilliant mingling of the mundane and the fantastic. "Fat Charlie" Nancy leads a life of comfortable workaholism in London, with a stressful agenting job he doesn't much like, and a pleasant fiancée, Rosie. When Charlie learns of the death of his estranged father in Florida, he attends the funeral and learns two facts that turn his well-ordered existence upside-down: that his father was a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god, and that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. Spider comes to visit Charlie and gets him fired from his job, steals his fiancée, and is instrumental in having him arrested for embezzlement and suspected of murder. When Charlie resorts to magic to get rid of Spider, who's selfish and unthinking rather than evil, things begin to go very badly for just about everyone. Other characters—including Charlie's malevolent boss, Grahame Coats ("an albino ferret in an expensive suit"), witches, police and some of the folk from American Gods—are expertly woven into Gaiman's rich myth, which plays off the African folk tales in which Anansi stars. But it's Gaiman's focus on Charlie and Charlie's attempts to return to normalcy that make the story so winning—along with gleeful, hurtling prose.

My Thoughts:
Oh my god. Neil Gaiman makes me cackle and giggle to myself. He makes it seem completely resonable that gods of old exist in the here now. They could be catching the bus or be that charming jerk off who managed to wile his way into your life and is currently sleeping in your spare room but you have no idea why.


Book #16
Book Title: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Mythology/ Humour
# of pages: 624
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not.

My Thoughts:
Maybe I’m just biased but I really really really loved his books. His writing style seemed so casual and easy that I would think that just about anyone with half a brain could read his novels. I do, however, baulk at getting just anyone to read them as the ideas that evolve within the book, the way it makes you think and the way you become after putting it down – yeah these are by no means layman’s novels. I literally had to put the book down for a few days just to get my head to stop thinking so I could read without my own ideas springing to the forfront.


Book #17
Book Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fairytale
# of pages: 288
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. Gaiman is known for his fanciful wit, sterling prose and wildly imaginative plots, and Stardust is no exception. Gaiman's silver-tongued narration vividly brings this production to life. Like the bards of old, Gaiman is equally proficient at telling tales as he is at writing them, and his pleasant British accent feels like a perfect match to the material. Gaiman's performance is an extraordinary achievement.

My Thoughts:
Such a beautiful piece of prose. I fell in love with it completely and totally.

Book #18
Book Title: One for the Money
Author: Janet Evanovich
Genre: Crime, Romance, Mystery, Humour
# of pages: 352
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):
First novels this funny and self-assured come along rarely; dialogue this astute and raunchy is equally unusual. The gutsy heroine introduced here is Stephanie Plum of Trenton, N.J., a recently laid-off lingerie buyer who has no job, no car and no furniture. She does have a hamster, a deranged grandmother, two caring parents and several pairs of biking shorts and sports bras. Finding work with her cousin Vinnie, she becomes a bond hunter and scrounges money enough to buy a gun, a Chevy Nova and some Mace. Her first assignment is to locate a cop accused of murder. Joe Morelli grew up in Stephanie's neighborhood. Possessed of legendary charm, he relieved Stephanie of her virginity when she was 16 (she later ran over him with a car). In her search, Stephanie catches her prey, loses him and grills a psychotic prizefighter, the employer of the man Morelli shot. She steals Morelli's car and then installs an alarm so he can't steal it back. Resourceful and tough, Stephanie has less difficulty finding her man than deciding what she wants to do with him once she's got him. While the link between the fighter and the cop isn't clear until too late in the plot, Evanovich's debut is a delightful romp and Stephanie flaunts a rough-edged appeal

My Thoughts:
Oh such fun. FUN. A strong sassy woman becoming a bounty hunter despite having no experience & a fear of guns. Got the next book on order all ready.


In line to read next:
Blood price: nothing in life is free by Tanya Huff
Jonothan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Peepshow by Leigh Redhead.
Undead and Unwed by Maryjanice Davidson
Something from the Nightside by Simon R Green


Gonna have to order in the next lot of Dresden Files books. grrr.

[Lani]

Books Read in ‘07
#1 The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
#2 Dearly Devoted Dexter – Jeff Lindsay
#3 Hogfather – Terry Pratchett
#4 Kiss of the Night - sherrilyn Kenyon
#5 Sins of the Night – Sherrilyn Kenyon
#6 Size 12 is not fat – Meg Cabot
#7 Fire Me Up (book 2 in the Aisling Grey Guardian Novels) - Katie MacAlister
#8 Pattern Recognition – WiLiam Gibson
#9 Storm Front – Jim Butcher
#10 Don’t Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs…She thinks I’m a Piano Player in a Whore House - Paul Carter
#11 Blood Sucking Fiends – Christopher Moore
#12 Fool Moon (book 2 of The Dresden Files) – Jim Butcher
#13 Dead Untill Dark (a Sookie Stakehouse Mystery) – Charlaine Harris
#14 The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of ChristmasTerror – Christopher Moore
#15 The Boleyn inheritance – Phillipa Gregory
#16 Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
#17 American Gods – Neil Gaiman
#18 Stardust – Neil Gaiman
#19 Blood Prince - Tanya Huff
#20 Blood Trial - Tanya Huff
#21 Blood Lines - Tanya Huff
#22 Blood Pact - Tanya Huff
#23 Thunderbird Falls - C.E. Murphy
#24 Undead and Unwed - Maryjanice Davidson
#25 Undead and Unemployed - Maryjanice Davidson
#26 Something from the Nightside (Nightside series) - Simon.R.Green
#27 Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill
#28 Jonothan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark
#29 The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
#30 Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore
#31 A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
#32 Peepshow by Leigh Redhead.
#33 One for the Money – Janet Evanovich
#34 Two for the Dough – Janet Evanovich
#35 Moon called - Patricia Briggs.

(books I read but forgot to add)
#36 Urban Shaman - C.E. Murphy
#37 You Suck: a Love Story - Christopher Moore

#38 Metro Girl – Janet Evanovich
#39 Three to get Deadly – Janet Evanovich
#40 Living Dead in Dallas – Charline Harris
#41 Working for the Devil – Lilith Saintcrow
#42 Kitty Goes to Washington - Carrie Vaughn
#43 Touch the Dark - Karen Chance


Pending…
#1 Syryp – Maxx Barry
#2 Blood Bound – Patricia Briggs
#3 The Gun Seller – Hugh Laurie
#4 Nightlife - Rob Thurman
#5 A kiss of shadows - Laurell K. Hamilton
#6 Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) by Neal Stephenson
#7 Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
#8 Agents of Light and Darkness: A Novel of the Nightside by Simon R. Green
#9 A Fist Full of Charms - Kim Harrison
#10 Young Miles by Lois McMaster Bujold
#11 Blood Debt by Tanya Huff
#12 Undead and Unreturnable - Maryjanice Davidson
#13 Undead and Unpopular - "
#14 Undead and Uneasy - "