I've got Stephen Johnson's new book, The Invention of Air, on top of my To Be Read pile. He's going to be on Colbert tonight--should be pretty interesting!
You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends.
Spike ,'Sleeper'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Kathy A - Mar 04, 2009 4:17:58 pm PST #8541 of 28431
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
beth b - Mar 04, 2009 4:36:42 pm PST #8542 of 28431
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!
Three Cups of tea is that book that everyone in this area is reading/ having book discussion for, etc.There is even a children's book out.
Ginger - Mar 04, 2009 4:49:13 pm PST #8543 of 28431
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I was also going to recommend The Ghost Map, which was excellent until the last chapter, in which the author tries to draw cosmic meaning about urban living from the story.
Toddson - Mar 05, 2009 4:35:28 am PST #8544 of 28431
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I was reading a review at Dear Author that had this:
sex so terrible that even the idea of my parents’ coupling is preferable to revisiting this
snerk
Kat - Mar 06, 2009 6:27:45 pm PST #8545 of 28431
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
anyone here read Fledgling? Any thoughts on it?
§ ita § - Mar 06, 2009 7:07:55 pm PST #8546 of 28431
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Octavia Butler?
HATED IT.
I choose to believe that if she'd lived longer she'd have fixed it. I found it clumsy and uncomfortable. I think I even wrote a couple negative reviews of it somewhere.
Atropa - Mar 06, 2009 7:34:13 pm PST #8547 of 28431
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
Octavia Butler?
HATED IT.
Same here. And yes, clumsy and uncomfortable is a very good description of it.
Pix - Mar 06, 2009 7:36:43 pm PST #8548 of 28431
The status is NOT quo.
I didn't hate it. I thought it was really interesting. But I love Octavia Butler, so I may be biased.
§ ita § - Mar 06, 2009 7:37:45 pm PST #8549 of 28431
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I found what I wrote right after I read it:
Weak. So disappointing. I love Octavia Butler's work, and waited as long as possible before starting this one because I knew it was her last.
I shouldn't have rushed. OB's characteristic is power without glamour, of painful compromises that verge on change/accept or perish.
I bought the alliances of her humans with aliens, for instance, and felt the regret of what the humans did to survive even while they were granted power previously impossible.
But the interactions in Fledgling just read like GHB to me. No matter how many times it was stated, it was all about addiction. That's subject matter I'd enjoy reading OB's take on, but here it wasn't portrayed with tension, just excused and glamourised.
I didn't like anyone in the book, care about their travails or dilemmas, or want to know more about them.
And let's not even start in on the shoddy proofing. Spellchecking isn't enough, people.
§ ita § - Mar 06, 2009 7:38:27 pm PST #8550 of 28431
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I adore Octavia Butler, FWIW. She's right up there with my all time favourites. I was so disappointed by this book.