September 20, 2010 by

July 2010

3 comments

Categories: Book Reviews, Tags:

I’m getting so close to caught up. What a delight that will be. And then I can skip several months in a row if I want. But I won’t. Because catch up is annoying.

Stats:

Books Read: 9 (+4 unfinished)

Books Bought: 2

Books from Library: 9

Books Loaned/Given: 2

Money spent: $2. Again with a library book sale.

Favorite Book: Absolute best book this month was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. I cannot recommend this enough. It’s fantasy and epic though so be prepared for that. But it’s also very human (even though like 4 of the main characters are gods.) Really excellent writing. And fascinating (to me) is that it was written by an African-American woman and I realized that after reading it and also must admit to not reading that much fiction written by Black people. I mean I’ve read lots in schools obviously because school likes to harp on the American melting pot and racism and the evolution of societal frictions. But the vast majority of books I read are by either white male sf/fantasy writers or white female YA authors. This is just the general break-down in the written word for me. So it was interesting to read something by a Black woman that did not significantly broadcast that fact in the writing. Honestly, it seemed much like any white male sf/fantasy book I’ve ever read. Maybe a little more feminine, but not that noticeably. So that was interesting to me is all I’m saying. I probably had more thoughts about how and why that was interesting but I had them back in July so what you get is this pared down version which probably is making me seem more racist than anything else. Sigh. I am not.

Other worthies: The Smoke Thief and The Dream Thief by Shana Abe and Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey.

Least Favorite Books: A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire, The Laird Who Loved Me by Karen Hawkins, This Can’t Be Love by Kasey Michaels, and Fallen by Lauren Kate.

3 Responses to July 2010

  1. Gene

    You didn’t like Seanan’s book! I haven’t read it (or the first one) but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Did you read the first one?

  2. michele

    I got both from the library and tried to read the first one and didn’t like it. So I didn’t actually read the whole thing or anything, but I read enough of it to find it annoying in plot and characters. But Kris read the whole thing so you should ask her for more detailed thoughts on the experience.

  3. Kristen

    I was actually thinking of reading the second one…but the Alameda library doesn’t have her books. OF COURSE. Ugh, do they have ANY books? If you don’t carry local authors, what do you carry, people??

    Sorry. End rant.

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