February books (and other things)
Mar. 11th, 2010 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayApparently I revert to being stupidly English when surprised by spam phone
calls at my workplace. As an aside, how did a company get my number to tell
me that I'd won nine thousand shares in something stupid in the first place?
Anyway, I reverted to type. Yelled: "The bloody cheek of it!"
And slammed the phone down.
Now my co-workers are giving me funny looks. Possibly from the yelling, but
judging by the IMs (WTF cheek? sums them up) probably from the language. And
I'd made so many strides. I was even describing everything as awesome like a
good little North American. Ah, well, can't win 'em all.
It's been a while since I did an update. I've written posts, but never seem
to remember to actually post them. Need to get better at that. However,
February is over so I think it's time to post this month's books:
The Chalet School in Exile - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer: I've read the Armada
paperback, but this was the Girls Gone By re-print using the full
manuscript. It's the Chalet School, so of course I enjoyed it. The material
that was restored definitely makes this a smoother read, despite there still
being an annoying gap where EDB doesn't give me Joey's wedding, and I'm glad
that I've finally been able to read it.
Storm Front - Jim Butcher: Everyone has been recommending the Dresden books
to me recently so I finally picked up the first. Lots of fun, quite light
and I'd quite like to read some more.
The School at the Chalet - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer: I'm on a bit of a Chalet
School kick. It's great to go back and read where it all began. I'm just
trying to ignore EBD's inconsistent character aging...
Old Man's War - John Scalzi: I've been hearing about this one for years so I
thought it was time to give it a try. Loved it! Great characters and an
interesting idea that was explored well. Best of all, it kept me diving back
for more every time I had a spare moment. It's nice to see a book that has
one basic idea done well and pays attention to things like characterisation
and invention. Too many books seem to try to skim several ideas, never
really giving anything the depth it needs, and sacrifice character to the
demands of the ideas. I'm definitely going to be looking for more Scalzi.
Storm Glass - Maria V. Snyder: This is the first in a promised series of
books featuring Opal Cowan. Opal appeared in her first series of books and
she was an interesting character, so it's nice to see her return. Snyder
gave some good hints about the world she created and we got to explore it a
bit in her first books, but here she's got lots of scope to explore and
takes every bit of it. I love Opal, I love that Snyder lets her admit that
she causes some of her own problems and I love the unsual magic she's
exploring. It's a book that was hard to put down.
A couple less than January, but I was also madly knitting for the
Ravelympics project so this is still a respectable haul. All of the books
were a great success and kept me highly entertained: I'd recommend every
single one of them. I've really got to get out there and spend the Chapters
voucher that I have sitting in my purse. This will require thought to make
sure that I buy winners rather than things that suck. When I have vouchers,
I always make a point of buying something from at least one author that I
haven't tried yet. It can be so difficult to wander out of the comfort zone
of familiar authors, particularly if you've had a few disastrous impulse
buys, but you have to do it or you'll eventually run out of books. Time to
hit Amazon and explore recommendations and reviews, I think, so that I can
hit Chapters with a list of things to look for.
If anyone has some suggestions for really great YA books that I might not
have tried yet (I'm up for anything that doesn't have vampires in including
teen angst ala Ann Brashares) that would be awesome.
calls at my workplace. As an aside, how did a company get my number to tell
me that I'd won nine thousand shares in something stupid in the first place?
Anyway, I reverted to type. Yelled: "The bloody cheek of it!"
And slammed the phone down.
Now my co-workers are giving me funny looks. Possibly from the yelling, but
judging by the IMs (WTF cheek? sums them up) probably from the language. And
I'd made so many strides. I was even describing everything as awesome like a
good little North American. Ah, well, can't win 'em all.
It's been a while since I did an update. I've written posts, but never seem
to remember to actually post them. Need to get better at that. However,
February is over so I think it's time to post this month's books:
The Chalet School in Exile - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer: I've read the Armada
paperback, but this was the Girls Gone By re-print using the full
manuscript. It's the Chalet School, so of course I enjoyed it. The material
that was restored definitely makes this a smoother read, despite there still
being an annoying gap where EDB doesn't give me Joey's wedding, and I'm glad
that I've finally been able to read it.
Storm Front - Jim Butcher: Everyone has been recommending the Dresden books
to me recently so I finally picked up the first. Lots of fun, quite light
and I'd quite like to read some more.
The School at the Chalet - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer: I'm on a bit of a Chalet
School kick. It's great to go back and read where it all began. I'm just
trying to ignore EBD's inconsistent character aging...
Old Man's War - John Scalzi: I've been hearing about this one for years so I
thought it was time to give it a try. Loved it! Great characters and an
interesting idea that was explored well. Best of all, it kept me diving back
for more every time I had a spare moment. It's nice to see a book that has
one basic idea done well and pays attention to things like characterisation
and invention. Too many books seem to try to skim several ideas, never
really giving anything the depth it needs, and sacrifice character to the
demands of the ideas. I'm definitely going to be looking for more Scalzi.
Storm Glass - Maria V. Snyder: This is the first in a promised series of
books featuring Opal Cowan. Opal appeared in her first series of books and
she was an interesting character, so it's nice to see her return. Snyder
gave some good hints about the world she created and we got to explore it a
bit in her first books, but here she's got lots of scope to explore and
takes every bit of it. I love Opal, I love that Snyder lets her admit that
she causes some of her own problems and I love the unsual magic she's
exploring. It's a book that was hard to put down.
A couple less than January, but I was also madly knitting for the
Ravelympics project so this is still a respectable haul. All of the books
were a great success and kept me highly entertained: I'd recommend every
single one of them. I've really got to get out there and spend the Chapters
voucher that I have sitting in my purse. This will require thought to make
sure that I buy winners rather than things that suck. When I have vouchers,
I always make a point of buying something from at least one author that I
haven't tried yet. It can be so difficult to wander out of the comfort zone
of familiar authors, particularly if you've had a few disastrous impulse
buys, but you have to do it or you'll eventually run out of books. Time to
hit Amazon and explore recommendations and reviews, I think, so that I can
hit Chapters with a list of things to look for.
If anyone has some suggestions for really great YA books that I might not
have tried yet (I'm up for anything that doesn't have vampires in including
teen angst ala Ann Brashares) that would be awesome.
