Today's Life

Cool Book Reviews Times images

A few nice book reviews times images I found:

Wonderful book reviews times:

the alchemy of desire by tarun tejpal

Image by northern green pixie
Got to page 106 on this then gave up. Bored. Although there are rave reviews quoted on the back, and V.S Naipaul apparently said, "At last – a new and brilliant original novel from India", I’m afraid I didn’t find it quite so stimulating. The blurb on the back talks of a young man "thrust into another world and time" , but the 100 pages I read were just some bloke talking about how he stopped desiring his woman, and flashing back to happier times. Reminded me a bit of Vikram Seth’s ‘An Equal Music’. Very precise writing, but also very conventional and unispiring.

Refinement :

Books read in December 2008

Image by duncatra
Kind of a slow month, but only two rereads! Mainly because it was book sale time….

Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg.
I was inspired to read this by a tor.com review and the huge gaps in my reading of ‘classic’ SF/F (On my own, I gravitate towards fantasy and female authors, so there are a lot of gaps.) And hey, I love me some sci-fantasy, so why not. Overall verdict: Not a bad read, but it didn’t blow my mind or anything. [Amazon]

Vamps by Nancy A. Collins.
I picked this up because I have a weakness for cheesy supernatural YA and Collins’ name was somewhat familiar. It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like: Gossip-Girl-but-with-seriousfax-bloodsuckers. (A quick peruse of Amazon shows there are at least three series with this exact premise.) It was momentarily amusing and contains as much label-name-dropping as one might expect, but I’m not really sure I’d pay full price for it. As for Collins, she’s best known as the author of Sunglasses After Dark, which I always thought was one of those cooler-than-thou 90′s vampire novels. (I think I read it back in the day, but I don’t actually remember.) Thus, not an author whose name I would have expected to see on this sort of book, but more power to her if it takes off. [Amazon]

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
This is my one ‘score’ at the latest book sale – aka a book I was excited to nab instead of just picking it up out of idle curiosity. I really enjoyed her Magic or Madness series, and this one didn’t disappoint. It was just a plain fun read with a cute premise. (I would so love a parking fairy.) Recommended. [Amazon]

The Secret Circle by L.J. Smith
Smith was probably better known for her vampire cycle back in the early 90′s, but this is the series I loved back as a teen. (She’s revisiting the vamps, which is no doubt part of why her older stuff is being reissued.) Looking at it through 30-year-old eyes it is entirely fluffybunny, and the characters are disturbingly one-note. Basically,I was so not surprised to see that Smith is the kind of person whose personal web page features photoshoppery of herself with a unicorn. Which isn’t to say the books are bad – just kind of pedestrian. They probably won’t fare very well for someone without the lingering teenie affection, but they’re not exactly R.L. Stine, either. [Amazon/Amazon]

Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover
I’m a SW geek of epic proportions so I’ve already raved quite a bit about this one in various places, but once again: It is awesome. You don’t need to know a thing about the greater Expanded Universe to read it. (Although if you do, it works on an entirely different level…) If you like Star Wars, even if you don’t read the books, this one is well worth making an exception for. [Amazon]

A few nice book reviews times images I found:

Beautiful:

Day 280/365 – Playing Hooky with Harry Potter

Image by Kevin H.
Thanks to my subversive instigation, nearly my entire office (including both our interns) snuck off to catch a noon showing of the new Harry Potter movie today. Don’t worry, we used our vacation time to go so there’s no issue of tax dollars being squandered while federal employees go AWOL.

Given that it’s summertime I was expecting the theater to be packed with kids, but it was almost exclusively a crowd of nerdy adults. Comme nous. The movie was good, but as usual there was a lot they left out. They kept most of the comedy and romance bits intact, but surprisingly they cut a major action scene from the book. Still, it was a satisfying film and skipping off in the middle of the day to go to the movies was great. Coming back to work afterward, not so much.

Surely there has to be a magic spell to chase away work. Some variation of expelliarmus perhaps, or maybe this calls for a patronus.

(July 15, 2009)

Beautiful:

Photo-0147.jpeg

Image by Prehensile Eye
T-Mobile

tips:Q&A–: New York Times Book Review?
i need to write an essay in the style of the new york times sunday book reviews can sum1help me by telling me how i shud write it i.e how to title it, how i shud structure my paragraphs etc. thanx

The following is the answer: (Hint: The reader is not the correct identification.)

Answer by J
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/books/review/Reich-t.html?_r=1&ref=review

There’s a link to one

Give your answer to this question below!