Tagged: literature
Look What Just Arrived! (#11)
No, I did not just go on yet another book buying spree. In fact, exactly half of these books were given to me by either publishers or authors.
- The Color of Rain by Cori McCarthy
- The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan
- Red Dragon White Dragon by Gary Dolman
- The Devil Incarnate by Jill Braden
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
The Color of Rain is an unusual book that I found through Grace’s blog, Books Without Any Pictures. Her description of it intrigued me so much that I went ahead and ordered it from my bookstore, read it in a day and will be writing my review for it shortly. For those of you that are curious, it’s the book that spurned me to write my ‘The Beauty of Fiction‘ article.
The Transhumanist Wager is something that I’m both excited for and reluctant about because while it’s something I might normally pick up on my own, I know it will be a controversial book to read and review here on my blog. Red Dragon White Dragon was sent to me by Gary Dolman’s publisher ages ago (2-3 months!) and only got here a few days ago. Hooray for Canada Post.
The Devil Incarnate was sent to me by Jill Braden’s publisher because they saw how much I loved The Devil’s Concubine (the first book) after I reviewed it through NetGalley. This second book is not necessarily better than the first, but it is different and I love the cover art even more.
The Kite Runner was a book recommended to me by a fellow book lover in real life and when I saw it at the library’s “fill a bag of books for $1” I knew I had to get it. It may be a while before I actually get around to reading it, but I’m definitely anxious to see what all of the hype is about. And of course the last book I bought for myself was The Grass Crown, the second book in Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. It’ll take me a while to read, being over a thousand pages, but it will be great in that since I’m so far ahead in my book challenge I’m going to skew my results by only counting books with larger page counts. That, and Colleen McCullough is a great author.
So what are you guys reading lately? See anything you like here?
The Beauty of Fiction
As I learned years ago, fiction is a beautiful thing for so many different reasons. It can teach you about the real world, provide an escape and bring history to life. Of course it can do so much more than that, but those are the main reasons why I love fiction.
Literature has been a driving force in pop culture for hundreds of years from Charles’ Dickens Oliver Twist to Harry Potter. So many different books have left their marks on world history, but more importantly on the lives of many individuals. When you find that one book that really changes your outlook on life it’s a hard feeling to put into words.
When you find that book that changes your life, it leaves you quite literally breathless when you finish it. You close the book, maybe stare at it for a few seconds and then slowly release your breath as you’re sucked back into reality. You get that odd feeling in your chest that’s a mixture of sadness, amazement and sheer awe. Continue reading
How to Write a Review Request
Sometimes I think things are so obvious that I couldn’t possibly need to write a tutorial on them. Review requests seem like basic common sense to me, but judging from the number of requests I’m still getting despite having closed submissions over a month ago shows that some authors have no idea what the heck they’re doing. So in my usual list format I’m going to go through the steps of writing a book review request email that won’t make reviewers want to punch you.
Credit: Eating Y.A. Books
Step #1: READ THE REVIEW POLICY!
Due to the generally family-friendly nature of this blog I am resisting the urge to swear to emphasize my point. Regardless, the first thing you should ever do when visiting a book review blog looking for a blogger to review your book is read their review policy. How do you find a review policy? Well, it’s either under its own tab at the top or side of the web page or is generally under FAQs. If it’s not under any of those, use the search bar. Once you find a reviewer’s policy, ask yourself these questions while reading it:
a) Is this reviewer open to submissions?
b) Is my book in the acceptable genre list?
c) Does my book meet any other requirements?
d) What other information do I need to collect in order to make a request? Continue reading
Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
After I found this highly sexist article called Why Girls Hate Game Of Thrones I’ve been on what I like to call a “slow burn”. I’ve been stewing about it for two weeks now, biding my time until I got into full rant mode and now I’m ready to explode. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling crankier than usual due to a strep throat, but either way I couldn’t resist the urge to refute this sexist, idiotic excuse for an article.
Because I’m feeling particularly rant-y I will now dissect the article piece by piece, but be warned that the original article contains coarse language you do not normally find on my blog. No, there’s no swearing but there are terms I would not use in polite conversation.
So here is why Renata Sellitti thinks all girls hate Game of Thrones the TV series (which can also apply to the books):
Point #1: “We hate gross things. Know what’s gross? Screwing your sibling.” Continue reading
Discussion: Favourite Books
Yep, the title pretty much says it all. You guys all know about my favourite books, but I know essentially nothing about yours. So what are your favourite books? Do you have just one favourite or many favourites? What makes this book your favourite?
For me personally I can’t pick just one favourite; I’ve read too many books. Usually I pick a favourite of the moment, which right now is Sandra Gulland’s Josephine B. trilogy about the life of the infamous Empress of France. I love Gulland’s take on Josephine and you really get the feeling that she was utterly ruined by history when in truth, she should be celebrated.
Remember the rules for Discussion posts? Well, there aren’t many. My commenting policy still applies of course, but you can engage either with me or any other commenter on the thread. So go on and have fun!