didn't like it - 0
it was OK - 3
liked it - 4
really liked it - 3
it was amazing - 0
10 votes total
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Dracula: Final Results
10 votes total
didn't like it - 0
it was ok - 1
liked it - 1
really liked it - 4
it was amazing - 0
didn't finish it - 4
didn't like it - 0
it was ok - 1
liked it - 1
really liked it - 4
it was amazing - 0
didn't finish it - 4
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
March Mystery Nominations continued
A nomination from Marina:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm. This first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm. This first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman.
March Mystery Nominations
Since March is coming up, we probably need to pick our mystery soon. I've been doing a little research and have a few nominations below. Please feel free to offer others in the comments or a separate post.
1. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman: A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman.
2. In the Woods by Tana French: Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends.
1. What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman: A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman.
2. In the Woods by Tana French: Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
From Freakonomics: Public Library Renaissance
The NYT Freakonomics blog notes a Boston Globe article about how 2008 was a big year for public libraries: circulation increases, library card applications, and of course, job hunt searches were all up. It makes me happy. A bad year for publishing but good year for community libraries.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Reading Resolutions
Does anyone have any reading related resolutions? I have one to read at least two books a month, our book club book plus one of my own choosing. I have a long list of books I want to read and last year I read only a handful of books outside of our book club picks. I have the free time so there's no reason I shouldn't be able to accomplish this goal. I'm publicly declaring this resolution here so you can all hold me accountable.
Also, if you haven't started The Stand yet, it's not too late! I just started last night and calculated that you only have to read 80 pages a day between now and book club to finish. That's doable, right?
Also, if you haven't started The Stand yet, it's not too late! I just started last night and calculated that you only have to read 80 pages a day between now and book club to finish. That's doable, right?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi, the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, has a new memoir out, reviewed in this past Sunday's NYT. It appears to give a behind the scenes glimpse at the author's life and choices to leave, then come back to Iran (then leave again).
The reviewer is the author of another book I'd like to read, called Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran.
The reviewer is the author of another book I'd like to read, called Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Reading like a Girl
Michelle Slayalla's NYT piece "I Wish I Could Read Like a Girl" breaks my heart. It's a quick eulogy for what readers lose when they grow up. Maybe that's our desire as adult readers - to recapture that youth and adolescence spent "draped over sofas and chairs and beds" and transported to another world.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Eeek!
Wow, this blog is out of date! I resolve to be better with it in the New Year!
For those of you who want to read in installments, DailyLit is an interesting idea. It's a service that allows you to subscribe to books. Portions are sent to your email or RSS feed reader every day, so you can read little bits at a time. It's an interesting idea but the idea of reading books in email or in Google Reader is not at all appealing to me. Does anyone think this would work for them?
For those of you who want to read in installments, DailyLit is an interesting idea. It's a service that allows you to subscribe to books. Portions are sent to your email or RSS feed reader every day, so you can read little bits at a time. It's an interesting idea but the idea of reading books in email or in Google Reader is not at all appealing to me. Does anyone think this would work for them?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
