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Category archive: Books

Review: Inkheart (movie)

As many of y'all may recall, a year ago I committed the sacrilege of disliking Inkheart (the book). One of... (More...)

Classics recast into high school settings

I recently learned about another modern movie that takes a Shakespeare play and reworks it to set it in a... (More...)

Want to read the fifth Marla Mason book?

T.A. Pratt's Marla Mason series of urban fantasy novels was cancelled last year after four books. Not long ago, the... (More...)

More about cover art

A few more assorted notes about cover art on books, especially with regard to issues of portrayals of characters of... (More...)

The Correct Number

Started reading Pamela Dean's The Secret Country last night on the way to sleep. My comment so far: Having five... (More...)

The effect of reading

"[W]hat with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits." —Don Quixote, chapter... (More...)

Maurice Sendak is so gay

Happened across a passing reference this morning to Sendak having come out last year (at age 80); looked it up... (More...)

15 books in 15 minutes

I'm not really clear on what the "15 books in 15 minutes" meme is supposed to be about. The instructions... (More...)

Amelia and Eleanor go for a ride, if you know what I mean

In a gift shop on Saturday, we came across a kids' book called Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride.... (More...)

The Dragons of Ordinary Farm

Tad & Deb's YA novel The Dragons of Ordinary Farm is now out from HarperCollins: Tyler and Lucinda have to... (More...)

Borders scores points

I called my two local independent new-book bookstores, but neither of them had the book I was looking for in... (More...)

Norse Code!

Greg van Eekhout's first novel, Norse Code, launches one week from today. Just in time for WisCon! And the first two... (More...)

American Gods

A while back, HarperCollins set up Browse Inside access to American Gods: you can read the first hundred-plus pages for... (More...)

Amazon: Possibly not evil?

The Internets have been full of panic and outrage today over Amazon allegedly instituting a new policy that any book... (More...)

How do you recognize a One True Pairing?

In conventional romance novels, you can always tell who the female main character is supposed to (and going to) end... (More...)

Spiral Hunt

In the Potlatch dealers' room, I was pleased to find Spiral Hunt, SH author Margaret Ronald's first novel, just published... (More...)

Review: Inkheart (book)

I saw a preview for the forthcoming Inkheart movie a few months back, and it looked like fun--and it appeared... (More...)

Welcome back to Temptation

The other night I was stressed and unhappy, and found myself reading through some old journal entries, one of which... (More...)

Coraline movie

Just learned that Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) is directing a movie based on Coraline... (More...)

Le Guin: Gifts, Voices, Powers

At some point--last year's WisCon, maybe?--I finally picked up the first two books in Le Guin's Annals of the Western Shore.... (More...)

Last day of Small Beer Press sale (plus: Aiken!)

Today is the last day of Small Beer Press's October Celebration Sale. Buy their books at 25%-60% off! I already... (More...)

Book cataloging

One of the things I've been doing now and then over the past couple weeks, usually when I should've been... (More...)

Jumper and Jumper

As I mentioned the other day, I saw the movie Jumper back in March. Back when we saw it, all... (More...)

Prince Caspian

Went to the late showing of Prince Caspian last night, 'cause I figured it may not be in theatres much... (More...)

Fiction therapy

Last night I went grocery shopping, then stopped by my local bookstore. (Books Inc, in downtown Mountain View.) There were... (More...)

Limerick

Earlier, Twig said something like, "What did I do with the cup?" And I had a flashback, as often happens... (More...)

Books

I've been reading some good books lately. I have long journal entries partly written in my head about each of... (More...)

Yay, Greg!

I have been ridiculously slow about congratulating Greg van Eekhout on selling his novel! Yay, Greg! Congratulations! (I gotta say,... (More...)

Good King Wenceslas

A couple weeks ago, Mary Anne and Twig and I were sitting around and someone started in on Christmas carols,... (More...)

Review: I Can't Tell You

Okay, I decided to finish reading I Can't Tell You instead of editing. (It's short and moves fast.) (Like a... (More...)

Big news about Dumbledore

I'm guessing all y'all already know this, but I suppose it can't hurt to put a spoiler warning here anyway.... (More...)

New "My Library" feature in Google Books

A bunch of my friends have been using LibraryThing to create an online catalog of their books, share that catalog... (More...)

R.I.P., Madeleine L'Engle

As most of you know by now, Madeleine L'Engle has died at age 88. I liked the original Wrinkle in... (More...)

Week, movies, socializing, books, travel, etc

I never did get around to writing here about the tall ships. I would still like to, but the chances... (More...)

Entering the books

Past couple nights, I've been entering my father's books--the ones I don't want--into Delicious Library. My theory is that once... (More...)

Move Under Ground for free!

In honor of Nick M's birthday (happy birthday, Nick!), I'm finally getting around to mentioning that Nick has provided his... (More...)

Save Pandemonium!

I'm way late on this, but I just heard that Pandemonium Books & Games, a science fiction/fantasy books-and-gaming store in... (More...)

Slobodkin site

Carol Reid of Albany, New York writes to tell me about Io Sono, her new site honoring the life and... (More...)

Genre conventions

I read some romance recently--a Crusie novel (reissue) I hadn't previously encountered, and then a set of three novellas by... (More...)

General notes, plus more Crusie

Sometimes I am a little grumpy and a little glum, due mostly to having been sick on and off for... (More...)

Howl's Moving Castle inventiveness

One quick note about the commentary on Howl's Moving Castle: A bunch of people in the supplemental materials on the... (More...)

Unusual points of view

Some notes on point-of-view handling in works by three authors: One idiosyncrasy of H. Beam Piper's writing, at least in the... (More...)

Greek suffix meets Lingua Terra

Sometimes people complain that the word polyamory is a mix of Latin and Greek roots. I've been known to make... (More...)

Book-shifting day, plus the Chicago Seven trial

This morning, I went over to Pam & Arthur's to help them move furniture and books; they're rearranging a bunch... (More...)

Borderlands this weekend

Reminder about two events this weekend at Borderlands Books in San Francisco: Saturday, November 11, 3:00 p.m.: Ellen Klages, reading... (More...)

More charming books by favorite authors

On the way out the door this morning, I picked up Peter S. Beagle's 1999 novel Tamsin, which has been... (More...)

Twenty Epics

Do you like epic fiction, but don't have time to read the latest ten-thousand-page epic series? Fear not! Twenty Epics,... (More...)

Swords

I still haven't put together my planned detailed discussion of Ellen Kushner's forthcoming book The Privilege of the Sword (aka... (More...)

Nalo, Beagle, et alia reading in San Francisco on Tuesday

This coming Tuesday, June 13, there are two events in San Francisco, at the same time and in different places,... (More...)

Tastemakers and reputable influencers

(I wrote most of this a week ago, but forgot to post it.) A while back, I was pleased and... (More...)

"Pushing the Envelope" resource list

At WisCon, as I mentioned a few days ago, I was on a panel titled "Pushing the Envelope," about how... (More...)

Reviewed without venom

For over three months now, I've been meaning to post a note about Liz Henry's excellent SH review of Touched... (More...)

Slate on the death of independent bookstores

Tyler Cowen weighs in with an article titled "What Are Independent Bookstores Really Good For?" and subtitled "Not much." The... (More...)

Tigana

Just finished reading Tigana. Wow. A really gorgeous book, compelling and moving and lovely, easy to read but richly layered,... (More...)

About spoiler warnings

(This is another case where I wrote most of the entry months ago but didn't get around to posting it... (More...)

Becoming what they oppose

There's a trope I like a lot in fiction when it's done well: characters who are so ardent in their... (More...)

Redshirts and spear-carriers are people too

This entry contains a couple of generalized and thematic quasi-spoilers for Battlestar Galactica, especially for the first half of season... (More...)

Ghibli Earthsea trailer

Studio Ghibli has released a second trailer for Gedo Senki, a.k.a. Tales from Earthsea. You may have to right-click that... (More...)

Romance meets action

As y'all know, I'm a big fan of Jennifer Crusie's books. What you probably don't know, 'cause I keep forgetting... (More...)

Long week

Assorted bits and pieces from the past week or so (some good, some not): (More...)

Rich Horton to do Year's Bests

As many of y'all know, Rich Horton reads possibly a higher percentage of the short science fiction and fantasy published... (More...)

R.I.P., Octavia Butler

For those who haven't heard: sf writer Octavia E. Butler died on Saturday, age 58. Here are some relevant links... (More...)

Rangergirl and the case of the snappy dialogue

I'm about a quarter of the way through Tim's novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, and so far I'm enjoying... (More...)

Africa, the Other, and sf

Some items that may or may not add up to more than the sum of their parts: Okay, so there's... (More...)

Lockpick Pornography: The Novel

I've posted a couple of times in the past year about Joey Comeau's short novel Lockpick Pornography--first when I first... (More...)

Rangergirl reading

Just a reminder that Tim Pratt will be reading at Borderlands Books in San Francisco today (Saturday, 7 January) at... (More...)

Productive

Here are some of the things I've done in the past week, in no particular order: finally washed some dishes... (More...)

(Some of my) favorite novels read in 2005

My pleasure-reading this year has been kinda haphazard. I've read probably a dozen novels (not counting re-reading the Narnia books... (More...)

Hitherby

Back in May, I posted some links to a few entries at Hitherby Dragons. I still haven't gone back to... (More...)

Outline of Narnian history, plus nitpicking

I'm continuing to re-read the Narnia books. Will have more to say about that sooner or later, but for now,... (More...)

R.I.P., Robert Sheckley

Most of you who would care know by now that sf author Robert Sheckley died a week ago. It's been... (More...)

Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Narnia movie was splendid. I went into it with very high hopes and a lot of trepidation. The hopes... (More...)

Boxing up the books

I've abandoned my original plan to spend this weekend doing a triage pass on Peter's books to get rid of a bunch of them before shipping them to my place; instead, I'm boxing them all up to mail, and I'll sort them at my leisure at home. (More...)

Things that have made me laugh this morning

The morning's just barely begun, and already two things have made me laugh: (More...)

Kepler's saved!

Kepler's Books will be reopening this weekend! They renegotiated the lease. The new business plan (according to the Palo Alto... (More...)

Busy

And another weekend flies by, just like that. I have lots of things to post, but keep not having time... (More...)

Thoreau on journaling

A conversation with Karen M. the other night somehow came 'round to the Transcendentalists, which reminded me of one of... (More...)

Robot librarian

According to the New York Times, Johns Hopkins is developing "a robot that can move about inside a library and... (More...)

Dept. of totally charming

I finally managed to hook up my PowerBook's DVD player to my TV. Works nicely. On the Spy Kids DVD... (More...)