pseudolibrary
I'm an eclectic reader.
The City
I wasn't missing anything all these years I hadn't read a Dean Koontz novel. This one has a lot of great history, but it comes off like a John Irving novel meant for 4th graders. It's one of the books that made me wish I'd made better use of my time. Not a good thing.
 - Orson Scott Card)
Ender's Game (Movie Tie-In)
Underdog with massive intelligence. Is it any wonder I'd like this book? People are making a big deal about all the pseudo- Hunger Games series, but I think those series actually owe a lot to Ender's Game too. I don't think I'll read the rest of the series - the first book was too good! Minus points for me because I watched the movie before reading the book.
The Lathe Of Heaven
This book is filled with philosophy, horror, science fiction, romance. Horror because Mt. Hood becoming an active volcano is scary to any Oregonian. There's undercurrents of Shakespeare and Brave New World. It's overwhelming in scope. Those fascinated by the workings of the brain will love this. I kept thinking as I was reading, "We really do NOT want to know what dreams may come..."Also, Mt. Hood is really overdone as a huge photograph, I loved it being a gag, I loved the way Ursula showed how something naturally beautiful, majestic can be commercialized, reduced in some way by mass production - which is encapsulates Haber's problems. Remaking is not bettering.
Watch out for post-apocalyptic rain. It's like warm soup. Ew.
Also, Murakami: eat your heart out! Aliens giving Beatles records to their antique-ing customers. Can't top that.
Bark: Stories
Lorrie Moore - acerbic, real, devastating. The women are past the age of marketability and their men are low-down scum. The romance is a little gruesome (there's some geriatric flirting going on), but the reader stays with it because of the sharp lines worthy of Oscar Wilde. Cuts to the heart.
The Man Who Laughs
Watch the movie before you read the book. Illogical! Not really. The movie is fantastic (and completely different plot-wise from the book). The movie takes out all the pedantry and brings in all the soap opera. So, when I read the book, I had all these emotions (ridicule for Dirry-Moir, spite for Josiana, wistful love for Dea & Gwynplaine). Basically, I had relationships with these characters. And after I started reading, after all the soliloquies that are so Hugo, I just fell more in love with this book. This is one for the introverts! This is one for the outcasts! There are some pet phrases of Hugo's that I had to laugh at. The comparison of everything to a tiger? OK. Hugo is like the Sir Mix-a-lot of foreign phrases. He likes big ones (and he doesn't lie, you 19th century brothers can't deny...).
This quickly became my favorite book. It's humorous and dark and rich.
SPOILER ALERT!
Locke & Key: Clockworks
I really was more curious about Rendell & co's experience with the keys, so it was good to go back and see their dynamic, and figure out who exactly Dodge was. I love that there's the possibility to make more keys. Can't wait to see what the fish hook/lure does.
Manifesto series
You got a love an anthology that includes a play about kitchen appliances falling from the sky. Okay, they're not falling. They're being dropped by pilots in love with a woman in the house below.
Sorrow Arrow
My new favorite collection of poetry. It cuts to the chase and hangs sorrow from the express checkout sign in the grocery store, It is a succulent that falls off the window.
I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats
Finally, the inner thoughts of cats are explained in brief koan-like bursts of meowness. Ahhh, the elusiveness of metaphor and laser-light!
Chew Volume 8: Family Recipes Tp
This is the funniest graphic novel I've ever read. And it's not just the chops, Toni or Poyo- it's all the background posters that inspire giggles, chortles and snorts. "The Stabbiest Prison,"? "E=MC Hammer"? Awesome. Love the art, love the concept.
The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
Let the author's middle initials be a lesson. These are stories of stumbling small-towners and troublemakers. There are more than a few criminals. It's in dialect, but it's fast-paced. It feels like all the buildings Pancake takes you through are falling apart, and so are the characters' lives. It's bleak and beautiful.
Hollow City
Romance, war and magic! Freaky photographs punctuate the peculiarity of the magical journey (that'll be drawn out to at least one or two more books). I absolutely did not like finding out that Ms. Peregrine was not the bird. I enjoyed the wind-up toy sequence at the train station so much that I was convinced it had to be her. I growled at the book when I discovered it wasn't her
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Greek myths and fake cures? Not going to lie, I was yawning a bit. But I loved everything starting with Chapter Four. Pasteur's lab dynamics and the little boy (Meister) who ended up defending the Pasteur's Institute from the Nazis just were amazing stories. Riveting.
Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft
The ideas within the Lovecraft house are tantalizing and lovely, but the art is a little too manga-ish for my taste. Would rather have the story in novel form.
We Were Liars
Rich kid problems, blah! I thought this was a one-star book. Even the King Lear fairy tales just sounded whiny. But then I hit chapter 19 and was hooked. It was like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but also had touches of Gatsby. Shakespeare for the teenage angsty romantic, perhaps? I hated the characters, hated the romance, hated the melodrama, but I reacted to all of it viscerally. Reaction is everything! Short and easily digestible Shakespeare. One thing though - "Mummy". Really? Ugh.
Currently reading
Golden Son
Lumberjanes, Volume 1
Reference and Information Services: An Introduction, Fourth Edition
