Category Archives: Other

What I’m reading + An aversion to seriousness breeds boredom.

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So I’ve been a boring book blogger lately because a) I haven’t been reading much of anything new and b) the stuff I have been reading doesn’t inspire much rave reviewing.

I DID finally get to read the sequel to Wolf Tower by Tanith Lee, which I’d been looking for in vain for years, because it is currently out of print and not available in ebook form, which is a shame, because those books are SO delightful. I wrote quite a long nice review on Goodreads and then accidentally left the page and my browser ate it. As you might imagine the frustration kind of dead-ended my enthusiasm for review writing for a bit. (Don’t worry I’ve added the Lazarus form recovery add-on so that doesn’t happen again, because I KNOW I am too lazy to write my reviews in a text-editor first)

It is slowly coming back (my enthusiasm), however the book I am currently reading, The Demonologist, while very good so far (and a bit scary!) isn’t one of my usual reading-for-pleasure genres. So I’m procrastinating?

I  know, that really doesn’t make sense, but I’ve mentioned before how I am studying English Lit in my last semester of college. So I am reading lots of things. Really good things. Mostly old really good things. And I hate it. I hate it so so much. I don’t like being forced to do anything ever, so my brain just takes a vacation whenever I try to make myself read something serious. Serious as in aspirations of literary grandeur. I would say The Demonologist is much more literary than most of the stuff I have been reading for pleasure lately. It really is very good so far. But I need more magic and witches and like, faerie folk. And swords. I need many more swords.

Anyway that’s all I have to say. Maybe I will get over my review aversion and reading aversion and have something to discuss with you soon. I’ve been itching to start the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, on my friend Michael’s recommendation. And another friend, Jake, suggested I start the Dresden Files series. I want to get excited and dive in (I am on Spring Break this week, too) but instead I am rereading the three Alex Craft novels in bed with a cat on my neck. I’m currently on Grave Dance. I KNOW, but they are SO good.

Do you have genre aversion? Tell me I’m not crazy (I mean, I am, but you know yadada mean).

Alex who? Kate Daniels has my heart.

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Remember last week when I kept going on and on about how much I missed reading Alex Craft novels and I was soooo desolate and just, generally inconsolable? Me neither.

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1)I had a couple of candidates for placeholders until August. One was Darynda Jones’ First Grave on the Right, which I reviewed here. I can be counted on to mostly only review books I don’t really like. I need to work on this.

Another was/is Sarah J. Mass’ series beginning with Throne of Glass. I think I am like 20% through that. That’s enough for me. I doubt I will finish it. It is quite terrible.

But but BUT, I did try out Ilona Andrews’ Magic Bites. Kate Daniels is my kind of protagonist. She is requisitely Buffy/kickass, but she has flaws too. Like, she makes mistakes. And sometimes apologizes for them. HALLELUJAH.

But really, these books are pretty freaking good. I’d recommend them to anyone, whether they like urban fantasy or not (I scoff quite disdainfully at those who do not).

The series is written by husband-and-wife team Gordon and Ilona Andrews. Ilona is from Russia, so one can be reasonably certain the Russian language and folklore mentioned in the books is accurate, and Gordon is ex-Army. It’s kind of weirdly comforting to think how accurate some of the weapons/tactical information in the series must be. A lot of authors do staggering amounts of research (and some, like Laurell K. Hamilton+ are actually real life semi-gun-nuts), so I suspend very little disbelief about weapons. However, I doubt any of these well researched people have had the occasion to shoot a person while researching firearms. Maybe Gordon hasn’t either. WHO KNOWS REALLY. Maybe I should email him and ask? Would that be rude? I would like, work up to it, obviously. But he’s a busy man, I’m sure, and it’s not like there is ever a good segue into “Hey, by-the-by, have you ever killed anyone?”

ANYWAY. So I like this Kate Daniels series. I read all the way through to Magic Slays. The next book in the series is called Magic Rises. Guess when it comes out?

July 30th. Sir, I do not shit you. I can’t catch a break, can I? Oh well. YOU WIN, PUBLISHERS. I will wait patiently. And beg for ARCs the whole time.

+ For some inexplicable reason I mention Laurell K. Hamilton a lot when I talk about books, and writing. And like, guns. And vampires? I don’t even know how it works. She just comes up a lot. I mean, I like her writing. I follow her on twitter. Sometimes I read her blog. But I am not particularly fanatical about her? Seriously though, just look through my reviews. It’s uncanny. Let’s just call it the LKH Phenomenon.

What I’m reading: Witches and necromancers and ghosts, oh my!

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Realizing I go through book phases. Last month it was dragons. This month it is necromancers.
— Erika Gill (@invariablyso) February 4, 2013

 

Actually I think I went through a mini-ghosts phase in between the dragons and the necromancers. 😀
— Erika Gill (@invariablyso) February 4, 2013

So I’ve just finally finished and posted my review of Beautiful Creatures, & if you read my review you understand how tedious that was.

I’ve been experiencing the strange phenomena of feeling forced to read things I am choosing to read, lately, and I do not like it one bit.

Part of the reason why this blog exists is because I am trying to escape reading the things I am assigned (lit major woes). I am using my necromancers for ESCAPE. Maybe Dante Valentine is the wrong necromancer to use for this. Oh, ahem, excuse me, NecroMANCE. Latin-y.

The other part is probably due to my obstinate determination to finish every book I start. Beautiful Creatures was almost 600 pages long. I am a masochist.

The DemonologistSo, bright side: now I get to decide what to read next. I have an ARC of Andrew Pyper’s The Demonologist on deck. I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading paperbacks because I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas from my parents and I am completely in love with it, so this gem I won in a FirstReads giveaway has had to wait for me.

The first nine pages are excellent, though, and I am looking forward to seeing how much of Morningside & the Columbia campus we get to see in this story. I applied to transfer to Columbia GS for undergrad. Wisely, they did not let me in. I’m not bitter, promise. Not anymore, at least. But I am nostalgic for NYC.

Despite this book being awesome and full of shiny promise…I miss Alex Craft. I read all three of Kalayna Price‘s books, Grave Witch, Grave Dance, and Grave Memory last week. I rated them pretty low, but in retrospect I have NO IDEA why. I am obsessed. I have grave witches on the brain. The next installment, Grave Visions, doesn’t come out until August.

AUGUST. I can’t even hope for a lucky ARC from Roc before April.

So what does a crazed Craft-lover do? Google for fan fics. Curse roundly when there aren’t any. Regroup, and use WhatshouldIreadnext.com to look up similar titles. Research average rating on Goodreads. Cross reference with Felica Day’s shelves (seriously that woman has read EVERYTHING). Select a few promising titles. Kindle it.

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1)Annnd BINGO. Kate Daniels. You have my heart. (and my bow, and my axe, etc.) It’s really really rare for the teaser page (tell me if there is correct terminology for this, please!) to completely bowl me over, but this did. Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews seems to be my Alex Craft holdover. And lucky for me there are like six books in this series. SALVATION.

Anyway, it’s looking like I am going to be super irresponsible this week so who knows, maybe I will get a chance to blog the other Alex Craft-esque books I found! If you’re impatient they all should be in my to-read shelf. Maybe I will also catch up with the Vaginal Fantasy Hangout book club! Oh, the possibilities.

What are you reading right now?

Review: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young

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How to Lose Friends and Alienate PeopleHow to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Toby Young’s ruminative work on social psychology, popular culture, the workplace hierarchy at Condé Nast in the 90s, and generally being unable to relate with people is a raw nerve, honest, and very British-ly self-effacing story that is VERY different from the 2008 movie.

As the son of Michael Young, who coined the term meritocracy long before his son Toby would come to be, well, sort of sidelined and knocked down by the cultural interpretation of it, Young offers an academic insight into the knock down, drag out head butting experience he faced as a journalist working for Vanity Fair.

In reading this book you might, at times, come to despise Young as much as it seems most who encountered him did, you’ll also be impressed by his insight, his intertextual sociological connections, and his rather breathtaking ability to delude himself. Can a book written about one’s delusions still leave one delusional?

I think I may have read the book a bit more seriously and with less of a cultural context than its intended audience, due to my age (I was 5 when the book opens) and sense of humor, which is quite malleable, thank you. Less funny, more cry for help, to me.

All in all, great book. Young does in this work what he reminisces about the hacks of NYC in the 30s did, what Graydon Carter did in The Spy but then quit, and what Young himself had set out to do: make fun of Hollywood from the inside. Sort of.

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