We're totally doing this again.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge, woodcuts by Andrea Dezso

I know that I'm not terribly critical of retold fairy tales, I love them with all of my cold dead heart. This reminded me a lot of Atwood's "Unpopular Gals" (I'm trying to read atwood's In Other Worlds but the introduction is crazy off-putting). It's got a couple twitchy bits, the source material isn't the most woman-friendly stuff in the world. But there's also lines like these in "Twelve Dancing Princesses"

"Now they're really mad. They're not doughnuts
in a box, oranges in a sack, pennies in a dish.
They're a force to be reckoned with."

Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines. Shocking no one, I loved this. This book is pure, unadulterated nerd crack and makes me dream of the future where all the books in the world are linked together.

It's quickly paced, it's got a magic system based on books that holds together really well. There's strong women, consistent logic, libraries and classifications of vampires based on literary traditions. There's same-sex couples, reasonable moral conflicts, a fire-spider and Gutenberg. And I think the ending kind of rocks.

There's a complaint on LT about this book dropping too many names. I'm pretty sure that's more than a little of what the book's about (he includes a helpful guide at the end, which also reveals which books are made up). It's possible this wasn't the best place to start reading Hines, but I'm going to go find everything else I can get my hands on, so in that respect it was a fine place to start.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace.

Is it unkind to always pair what I read up with things that I've read before? (though that begs the question of kindness). This has a Diane Ackermanny feeling, occasionally lovely prose that gives the impression of being too pleased with itself. This is also a a love story without a happy ending, wrapped around the framework of Pellegrino Turri inventing the typewriter for his blind married lover. I wanted to love this, but in the end, we're better off being friends.

I'm mostly finished with Brennan's Lies and Prophecy (thank you LT's early reviewers program). As mentioned earlier, I'm finding Atwood's In Other Worlds insurmountable. I started Barberry's The Elegance of the Hedgehog and made it about 100 pages in before realizing it was making me surly and put it down. Commutes are getting more and more about twitter and less about books and I kind of adore the polite fiction of connectedness twitter affords me, but between it and the cross-stitching, my book-devouring is definitely slowing down. But October almost demands a book and a cup of tea to go along with the blanket and noisy thumps that mean the heater's coming on so maybe the second half of this month will clear the to-read shelves a little more.

We're totally doing this again.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge, woodcuts by Andrea Dezso

I know that I'm not terribly critical of retold fairy tales, I love them with all of my cold dead heart. This reminded me a lot of Atwood's "Unpopular Gals" (I'm trying to read atwood's In Other Worlds but the introduction is crazy off-putting). It's got a couple twitchy bits, the source material isn't the most woman-friendly stuff in the world. But there's also lines like these in "Twelve Dancing Princesses"

"Now they're really mad. They're not doughnuts
in a box, oranges in a sack, pennies in a dish.
They're a force to be reckoned with."

Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines. Shocking no one, I loved this. This book is pure, unadulterated nerd crack and makes me dream of the future where all the books in the world are linked together.

It's quickly paced, it's got a magic system based on books that holds together really well. There's strong women, consistent logic, libraries and classifications of vampires based on literary traditions. There's same-sex couples, reasonable moral conflicts, a fire-spider and Gutenberg. And I think the ending kind of rocks.

There's a complaint on LT about this book dropping too many names. I'm pretty sure that's more than a little of what the book's about (he includes a helpful guide at the end, which also reveals which books are made up). It's possible this wasn't the best place to start reading Hines, but I'm going to go find everything else I can get my hands on, so in that respect it was a fine place to start.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace.

Is it unkind to always pair what I read up with things that I've read before? (though that begs the question of kindness). This has a Diane Ackermanny feeling, occasionally lovely prose that gives the impression of being too pleased with itself. This is also a a love story without a happy ending, wrapped around the framework of Pellegrino Turri inventing the typewriter for his blind married lover. I wanted to love this, but in the end, we're better off being friends.

I'm mostly finished with Brennan's Lies and Prophecy (thank you LT's early reviewers program). As mentioned earlier, I'm finding Atwood's In Other Worlds insurmountable. I started Barberry's The Elegance of the Hedgehog and made it about 100 pages in before realizing it was making me surly and put it down. Commutes are getting more and more about twitter and less about books and I kind of adore the polite fiction of connectedness twitter affords me, but between it and the cross-stitching, my book-devouring is definitely slowing down. But October almost demands a book and a cup of tea to go along with the blanket and noisy thumps that mean the heater's coming on so maybe the second half of this month will clear the to-read shelves a little more.