Puss Reboots: Blog: July 2011

July in Review: 07/31/11

In July I finished 43 books, down six books from June. Instead of reading, I've been exploring with my children. At night instead of reading, I've been working on this blog. The archives are suffering a bit from code rot and I'm trying to bring them up to spec.

I'm nearly done with two manga series: Fullmetal Alchemist and xxxHolic. I'm still working through Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and Twin Spica. I've also stared Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Eleven of my finished books (or 1/4 of the total reads) came off my wishlist. I had to send back a few books to the library because they were put on hold. That's the down side of wanting to read popular books! I will try again later.

My ROOB score is at its worst ever, rising to -1.35, making it one of the worst months for reading from my TBR list. The problem is that I had to read a bunch of books I bought off my wishlist. It was worth it.

Books reviewed this month

Rating out of 5 stars (as posted on GoodReads)

Five Stars:

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello (review copy)
And a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis (library book)
Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan (library book)
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve (personal collection)
City of Spies by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan (library book)
Compost Stew by Mary McKenna Siddals (library book)
The Daddy Book by Todd Parr (library book)
Fullmetal Alchemist 05 by Hiromu Arakawa (library book)
Knuffle Bunny Free by Mo Willems (personal collection)
Olivia Goes to Venice by Ian Falconer (personal collection)
Something to Do by David Lucas (library book)
A Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles (library book)

Four Stars:

Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery (personal collection)
Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet by Graham Salisbury (library book)
The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson (personal collection)
Junonia by Kevin Henkes (review copy)
The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto (review copy)
My Dog Toby by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha (library book)
Stella, Princess of the Sky by Marie-Louise Gay (library book)
Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield (library book)
Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert (library book)

Three Stars:

Filipinos in Alaska by Thelma Buchholdt (library book)
Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris (personal collection)
Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Myers (library book)
The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt (review copy)

Two Stars:

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (library book)
Tuey's Course by James Ross (review copy)
Vampire Theory by Lily Caracci (review copy)

One Star:

Once Wicked, Always Dead by T. Marie Benchley (review copy)
Our Lady of Immaculate Deception by Nancy Martin (library book)
The Tale of the Namelss Chameleon by Brenda Carre (personal collection)

Books and stories read this month (reviews coming)

Personal Collection

Bagelmania by Mountain Lion Books
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
F U, Penguin: Telling Cute Animals What's What by Matthew Gasteier
Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn
Lift by Kelly Corrigan
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Library books

Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets by Dav Pilkey
The Case of the Left-Handed Lady by Nancy Springer
Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj
The Cloud Searchers (Amulet, #3) by Kazu Kibuishi
Dog Eared: Starring Otis by Amanda Harvey
Fullmetal Alchemist, Volume 21 by Hiromu Arakawa
Fullmetal Alchemist, Volume 22 by Hiromu Arakawa
Hockey Opposites by PerHenrik Gurth
How To be A Baby . . . By Me, The Big Sister by Sally Lloyd-Jones
King & King & Family by Linda de Haan
Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes
Navajo Made Easier: A Course in Conversational Navajo by Irvy W. Goossen
The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen by Mitali Perkins
My Havana: Memories of a Cuban Boyhood by Rosemary Wells
100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin
Pickles To Pittsburgh by Judi Barrett
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
Revolutionary Girl Utena, Vol. 1: To Till by Chiho Saitou
The Secret Box by Barbara Lehman
Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burrwood Forest by John Lechner
These Granite Islands: A Novel by Sarah Stonich
Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Volume 5 by CLAMP
Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Volume 6 by CLAMP
Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Volume 7 by CLAMP
Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test! by Carol Barnum
The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas
XXXHolic, Volume 13 by CLAMP
XXXHolic, Volume 14 by CLAMP
XXXHolic, Volume 15 by CLAMP
XXXHolic, Volume 16 by CLAMP
Zero by Kathryn Otoshi

Review copy

Doctor Who: The Ripper (Eleventh Doctor Comics, #1) by Tony Lee
Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin
Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes about the Stars and Legends of the Movies! by Stephen Schochet
Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler
The Secret of Ka by Christopher Pike

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And a Bottle of Rum: 07/31/11

And a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis draws its title from the pirate song penned by Robert Louis Stevenson for Treasure Island. In fact, Curtis's opening chapter includes an explanation of why he chose the title and how the phrase came about.

From there he explores two parallel histories: the creation of rum and its uses over the years. Along with his discussion of how rum has been used, he has some cocktail recipes and their histories.

My favorite pieces of the book were the history of grog (along with its recipe), the history of the mojito (a drink I've never had but was curious about) and the differences between the real Captain Morgan and the brand name.

Rum I remember from history class and the discussion of the sugar trade. Curtis has some thoughts about the triangle and makes some compelling arguments against the simplistic description of the relationships between slavery, sugar and rum. He's not saying there wasn't any correlation, just that it's not as straightforward as a triangle.

Another fascinating piece of rum's history, is its similarities with gasoline (petrol). I remember from my days of listening to my dad and his antique car buddies talk shop is that cars run on gasoline because in the early days of car tinkering (when they were primarily self built or engines but onto carriages), gasoline was cheap (if not free) because it was the waste product from making kerosene.

Rum came about under similar circumstances. The sugar refining process left tons of this black gooey mess that was a pain to dispose of, until some enterprising hooch makers found a way to distill it into a cheap (if not free) alcohol. The only problem, lead in the pipes often lead to poisonous liquor. But carting it around in barrels (yo ho ho!) leeched out those impurities. So in a strange turn of fate, rum shipped overseas (or kept on a ship and mixed with water and lime juice) was a much nice spirit than what was drunk locally on the islands.

Five stars.

A Toast to Tomorrow: 07/30/11

A Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles was one of my first wishlist books crossed off the list when I began to seriously try to read from it. It dates back to 1941 and was published in Great Britain as Pray Silence.

Klauss Lehman is a high ranking S.S. officer. He's the Chief of the German Police and he wants to break Goebbel's racket of letting Jews escape by donating 80% of their assets to the cause. Except Klauss might not actually be who he thinks he is. Things start to unravel when he recognizes a World War One era code tapped into the background of a propaganda radio play.

Before the big reveal of Klauss Lehman's secret, I was wondering why I had put the book on my wishlist. The juggling Klauss has to do once he figures out who he really is and whose side he's really on, I knew I had made the right decision when I put it on the list.

I'm not going to reveal the secret. It's worth the fun of reading. The book is thought provoking and humorous. It reads like an Alan Furst novel but it was written during WWII, not decades after it.

Five stars.

Vampire Theory: 07/29/11

I was intrigued by the description of a young woman becoming a vampire to save her town from other vampires. That's what was promised in Vampire Theory by Lily Caracci. It's not exactly what was delivered.

Most of this long book is a paranormal drama set in a high school. Emalyn Archer is a student who takes notice of a new boy. When he starts behaving oddly and strange things start to happen, she begins to suspect he's something other than human.

As the book description says up front that Emalyn won't survive with her humanity intact, I expected her fall to come in the first third or maybe at the halfway point. It doesn't. That's how the book ends. I had really hoped to see the aftermath of her failure. I wanted to see her come to terms with her transformation. There is none of that.

Copy received from the author.

Two stars.

City of Spies: 07/28/11

City of Spies by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan is a graphic novel set in 1942 in a large city. Evelyn escapes reality by writing her own comic book in the style of Superman. Before she knows it she and her new friend Tony are in the middle of a spy plot that might involve Nazis.

The book opens with one of Evelyn's comics. For me it was an awkward start. The obvious homage to the golden era Superman felt somewhat forced especially out of context. Fortunately though the story of Evelyn moving into the city to temporarily live with her aunt and her adventures with Tony makes up for the awkward start.

Later instances of Evelyn's hero comic make sense. They are placed in the context of her story and we can see where she draws her inspiration.

Although I found the first couple pages a rough start, the rest of the book more than made up for it.

Five stars.

The End of the Alphabet: 07/27/11

The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson has been on my wishlist since the book first debuted in 2007. A copy of the beautifully designed slim volume appeared at our local BookCrossing meeting and I was immediately smitten with it. As I have such a huge to be read pile, I dutifully waited until everyone else in the group who wanted a chance to read it, had. Waiting took three years but it was well worth it.

Ambrose Zephyr and Zappora "Zipper" Ashkenazi have a good and happy life together. All that comes crashing down when Ambrose is diagnosed with a terminal disease and has a month to live. He decides to visit his way through the alphabet, one city at a time.

Of course such a goal with an advanced (but unstated) illness makes the whole A to Z thing quixotic. But that's part of its bittersweet charm. This isn't a children's alphabet book so there's no unspoken guarantee that Ambrose will make it to the end. I knew that from the very beginning and yet I kept hoping that he'd prove me wrong.

The End of the Alphabet is one of those small but powerful books, memorable for its simplicity of story telling and depth of emotions. It's there with books like The Little Prince and The Doorbells of Florence (review coming).

Four stars.

Stella, Princess of the Sky: 07/26/11

Stella, Princess of the Sky by Marie-Louise Gay is one of the Stella and Sam series of books. I included on my list of astronomy themed books for children ages 5 to 8.

The book begins with a conversation between Stella and Sam about the sunset and how the sky changes over the course of the day. It prompts the children to stay out that night, camping under the stars. They observe the sky above and the animals around them.

The illustrations capture the changing colors of the night: pastel oranges and pinks at sunset, deepening purples to blues as it gets later and brilliant whites for the stars. The question and answer approach of Sam and Stella's conversation can inspire children and parents to make their own observations about what they see and hear at night time.

It's more than just a book out basic backyard astronomy. There's also good talking points about nocturnal animals and other night time things. This book would do well in any number of themes that teachers or parents might have in mind.

Four stars.

books | Marie Louise Gay | childrens | 2004

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Big Red Lollipop: 07/25/11

Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan was inspired by her own childhood as a younger sister who desperately wanted to go with her sister to a birthday party even though she wasn't invited. It's told from Rubina, the oldest sister's point of view. She is invited to a birthday party, something her immigrant mother has never heard of and she tries to explain that only she is invited. Her mother though says she can only go if she can take her middle sister.

Things don't go well and Rubina isn't invited to many parties after that. When the middle sister is ultimately invited to a birthday party, Rubina steps in and convinces their mother to leave the youngest sister at home to avoid a repeat.

The story gave me pause, not over the realization that birthday parties are a very Western thing, but over the fact that where I live all of the siblings are typically invited. We live in a very diverse neighborhood and until I read Big Red Lollipop I never wondered if diversity had anything to do with the inclusion of siblings at birthday events. Whatever the reason, I'm glad we typically invite everybody.

Five stars.

What Are You Reading: July 25, 2011: 07/24/11

I did manage to finish 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson but I'm only halfway through The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Maybe this week I'll finish Zusak's book. It's good but I can only read it in short bursts.

I've been busy with school work so I haven't gotten any review books read. I'm still on the first chapter of The Goddess Test.

The silliest book I've been reading this week is Bagelmania by Mountain Lion Books. It's a bagel compendium. It's a little too pro Lender's Bagels for my tastes but other than that it's fascinating. I first heard about it on the radio (NPR, I think) four or five years ago. I've been searching everywhere for it. I found a copy via Better World Books.

This week I plan to finish Bagelmania and Rampant. I hope to also get started in earnest with The Goddess Test.

Finished Last Week:

100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson (library book)
The Cloud Searchers (Amulet, #3) by Kazu Kibuishi
The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen by Mitali Perkins
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin
Pickles To Pittsburgh by Judi Barrett
The Secret Box by Barbara Lehman
Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE, Volume 7 by CLAMP
XXXHolic, Volume 16 by CLAMP
Zero by Kathryn Otoshi (library book)

Currently Reading:

Bagelmania by Mountain Lion Books (personal collection)
Bombardiers by Po Bronson (personal collection)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (personal collection)
The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter (review copy)
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (personal collection)
Rampant by Diana Peterfreund (library book)
Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer (library book)
The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan (personal collection)

Reviews Posted:

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (personal collection)
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (library book)
Once Wicked Always Dead by T. Marie Benchley (review copy)
Seventhfold Spell by Tia Nevitt (review copy)
The Tale of Nameless Chameleon (personal collection)
Tuey's Course by James Ross (review copy)
Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield (library book)

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Anne of Green Gables: 07/24/11

My first introduction to Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery was a beat up paperback with cover art from the TV series. I found the book when walking to my grandmother's house from high school. I felt sorry for an orphaned book about an orphaned girl. I figured it was a sign that I should read the book.

I re-read the battered book and the other books in the series through college and on to graduate school when I was newly married. Then I put the books aside and got on with my life. That was until 2010 when Nanowrimo was rolling around again. I decided to work my way through the book as inspiration for my own novel in a month.

I wanted to re-read my old battered copy (yes, I still have it) but it was in storage. So instead I downloaded a scanned copy from the 1908 edition and read it on my computer.

In the almost twenty years since I last read Anne of Green Gables I had of course forgotten details and misremembered others.

I still remembered the basics: Martha and Matthew wanting a boy to help around the farm. Instead of a boy, they get Anne and can't decide what to do with her. I remembered Gilbert Blythe and his pranks on her early on.

What surprised me most about the re-read was the novel's episodic nature. After a couple introductory chapters in which the major players are surprised, the book settles into relating a bunch of different scrapes Anne gets into.

The next thing that surprised me was just how much Anne babbles. I remember her talking a lot but the first third of the book is mostly her monologs. My goodness does she babble!

This third read through Anne of Green Gables was my most critical in that I was trying to see how it was put together and what made it tick. In the past I was reading it first for curiosity and the second time to revisit with Anne. My taste in books has evolved somewhat over the years but I'm still glad I re-read it.

Four stars.

Tyranny: 07/23/11

Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield caught my eye at the library. It's a graphic novel that looks at causes of anorexia and the devastating effects it has on people.

The book starts near the end of the story with the protagonist, Anna, wondering how she has gotten to this point in her life. She goes back and examines her home life and how little things piled together to make her stop eating and fearing food.

Throughout, Anna's anorexia is personified by this scribble woman whom she calls Tyranny. She nags Anna when she eats and praises her when she doesn't. She pushes her to exercise to the point of exhaustion and so forth. Slowly over the course of the book Anna begins to look more and more like her inner demon.

The book is raw and upfront about the dangers of a poor body image and the destructive nature of anorexia. The scribble scrabble line drawings work well to reinforce the themes and emotions of the story.

Four stars.

Labyrinth: 07/22/11

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse was a book club selection. It's an archeological mystery in the present day and a 13th century historical fiction linked. The two plots are linked together by location and both have female protagonists with names beginning with the letter A.

In the present day Alice Tanner finds a potential tomb site inside a cave while helping with an archeological dig. Afterwards she begins to experience lapses in memory. A body is found near the site and she becomes the primary suspect. With her spotty memory she has trouble defending herself.

In the past Alais is given a ring by her father and told to protect it with her life. It holds the key to the Grail's secret hiding spot. It must be kept hidden at all costs.

Alais's story takes up two thirds of the book. I wish it were only a third of the total story because the historical melodrama got old fast. She's supposed to be a strong character, full of conviction but she is basically a pawn of the plot. To get through the book I had to skim through most of Alais's parts.

Two stars.

Once Wicked Always Dead: 07/21/11

Once Wicked Always Dead by T. Marie Benchley tries to be a thriller and ends up being a train wreck. It has strange pacing issues, characters acting without understandable motivation and a whole cast of stereotypes.

Molly Madison's parents are killed en route to her home and her husband is carrying on a homosexual affair. She needs some time off and decides to head home to her parents' ranch in Montana. It's there that she realizes she's being stalked by serial killer. While Molly is trying to cope with her life being in turmoil, she begins to fall in lust with Clayton the ranch foreman.

Here's where things start to fall to pieces; the book can't decide if it's a romance or a thriller. Nor can does it know how to balance the tropes of the two genres. The clashing motifs and changes of tone left me with literary whiplash.

Then there's the serial killer stalker. While Red John might be interesting plot device in The Mentalist the show gets away with it by not making every mystery relate directly to his crimes. But in a book with only one crime that's fighting for precious pages with a marriage gone bad and hot cowboy sex, a stalker serial killer is silly and not in a good way.

One star

The Sevenfold Spell: 07/20/11

The Sevenfold Spell, an ebook by Tia Nevitt, re-spins the tale of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of a spinner affected by the proclamation banning all spinning wheels after the curse is put on the newborn princess.

Doesn't that sound like a brilliant way to rethink a well known fairy tale? I was excited to dive into this novella. Coming in at 97 pages it's a fairly quick read, although slower for me because I'm not much of an ebook reader.

When the book stays focused on the task at hand: describing how the curse has affected the kingdom it's a page turner. Unfortunately it has these huge lags in the plot devoted to sexually explicit filler. I'm not against reading sex in books but it has to have a point. Here it really doesn't except to add about twenty or thirty pages to the book.

What could have been there instead would be more character development for Talia. Her friendship with Rose could have been expanded. Her relationship with Willard could have been given some depth to make their sex scenes actually meaningful.

Read via NetGalley.

Three stars.

Tuey's Course: 07/19/11

Tuey's Course by James Ross is the third of the Prairie Winds Golf Course series. It, though, has little to do with golf (and could use some more).

Tuey is a down and out African American man living in the inner city. He feels he is being targeted by a ruthless cop who is regularly fining him and his business for things that other businesses seem to get away with. When he can't get a fair hearing or even a sympathetic ear, he's driven to extreme measures.

I read the book against the context of some recent local police and government scandals. That angle of Tuey's Course therefore had a hint of believability. Tuey though doesn't have the means to demand justice and the book doesn't give us a character who does to see that piece of the plot to its conclusion.

Instead of a complete follow through on Tuey's problem, there is a smattering of a golf story. Really it's more of a golf novella woven into the book.

The deal killer though for me was Tuey's ghetto speech. I get that he's poor and he's probably under educated as well but the dialect is over done and gets in the way of the plot. Dialect is a very difficult thing to do well and in most cases should be left alone or at best, hinted at through sparsely used local slang.

Review copy from author.

Two stars.

The Tale of the Nameless Chameleon: 07/18/11

"The Tale of the Nameless Chameleon" by Brenda Carre is a high fantasy tale of a women using her own bad situation to rid the kingdom of Sham of its despot ruler.

The story is written as high fantasy and I'll be upfront with my distaste for this type of fiction. In all the effort of using poetic language and a pile of metaphors on top of a lexicon of made up words leaves little room for character or plot development.

After having read the story three times I am left with nothing about the narrator except that she is a street urchin forced to working for the House of the Twelve Sages. I don't think a fourth or fifth re-read will bring any more details to light or commit them to my memory.

One star.

What Are You Reading: July 18, 2011: 07/17/11

As predicted last week, I did finish The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx as well as another volume of Twin Spica by Kou Yaginuma and xxxHolic Volume 14 and 15 by CLAMP. All four books were excellent.

I finished two review copies: Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler and the first issue of Doctor Who: The Ripper by Tony Lee.

The silliest book I read was F U, Penguin by Matthew Gasteier which takes a harsh but funny look at all the cute animals clogging the internet.

This week I plan to finish 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson and Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. Both are very good so far. If I'm really organized I'll also finish The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

I can't wait to get these books reviewed. It was one of the best weeks of reading I've had in a long time.