Wandering Wednesday, September 29

An odd mix of articles for this week, a few quite old (sorry) and some just gleaned today! 

  • Literary mashups. Whether you like them or not, it seems they're spreading, and according to the Guardian, children's classics are next.
  • Author Lauren Willig on editing her first novel for mass paperback -- and what she chose to change.
  • The Paris Review blog on welcoming a new translation of Madame Bovary.
  • Allegedly, people (always? often? usually?) read page 99 of a book to get a sense of whether they want to purchase it or not.  Now there's a test for authors to see if their book would pass.
  • An appropriate article for Banned Books Week: what are books good for?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Winners!

Image
Three giveaways closed for this week. Here are the winners!



The winner of Ashes of the Earth is ... Nancye D!

The winner of Road From the West is ... Elysium!

The winner of Ivan and Misha is ... Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit!

Winners have been emailed -- congrats!  For those who didn't win, I have two open giveaways still and more coming this week!
Read more

Winter 2017 Bloggiesta To Do Post

Image
I love Bloggiesta for reminding me to brush up and take of my blog, and doing it "in community", so to speak, makes this housework a little more fun.

Given my earlier whining about feeling out-of-it with my blog, I'm really excited there's a mini-event this coming weekend in which I can do some backend work here.

My to do list is pretty simple:
make a top 10 of 2016 post (even if it is just a list!)review the book I just finished!I'd like to start 2017 without a backlog of reviews, so it feels important I keep up. We'll see if I'll tackle my 2016 backlog. (Perhaps for another Bloggiesta!)
Read more

Book Review: The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Image
First line: Everyone agreed it had been a bad winter, one of the worst in recollection.

Unlike most of the planet, I didn't like Katsu's debut novel, The Taker. Which I was bitter about, because Katsu impressed me with her potential.

With The Hunger, I got the novel I always wanted: taut, moody, dangerous, atmospheric, and creepy.

I don't know where to start with my squee-ing. It helps that the premise -- supernatural take on the Donner Party tragedy -- is just so delicious. Katsu doesn't speed through the trip, and through the early days we learn how fractured these people were, and the many demons that chased them. She takes her time to give the characters space to breathe, and we're rewarded with rich plot threads and deeply flawed and oh-so appealing characters.

For history sticklers, this book will surely aggravate, as Katsu takes some wild liberties with the histories of the Donner Party members: victims of sexual abuse, secretly gay, murderer. But I uh-dore…
Read more

Weekend reads, and I got nothing...

Image
I'm late with this post -- which also pretty much has nothing to do with books -- because of allergies and the migraine that came with them.

Goodreads says I'm currently reading 9 books, which sounds both totally possible and really quite ridiculous.

What are you reading this weekend? Anything I should pick up that would rattle me out of this fug?
Read more