Reading Recommendations?

[Desmodus]

It's a romance, yes, but much more.

[Desmodus]

I love China Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station et al. and cyberfriend of our very own Wolfdaddy.  So when I saw he had a new book out, The City & the City  I had to look up the review in Locus magazine and this exerpt just screamed "SEKKIE!" at me, as well as prompting his other fans in these parts to check it out.  Locus said:

"One of his most impressive achievements is the manner in which he respects and retains the integrity of the police procedural form while introducing layer upon layer of more complex mysteries..."

China's books always have fascinating layer upon scintillating strata of races, cultures, secret societies, architecture, fantastic architecture and amazing creatures.  I can't wait to check this one out!

[chasa]

When The Time Traveler's Wife was released in 2003, One_by_one tried her best to get me to read it, but I was absorbed in other books and things were going on in my life and I just never got around to it.  In the past week no less than 3 (unacquainted) people have told me it was their favorite book, and when we went to see Harry Potter on Saturday there was a trailer for the movie coming soon.  So on the way home from the theater I stopped at the bookstore.  I also bought the next two Sookie Stackhouse books, but I started The Time Traveler's Wife first and I have the hardest time putting it down!

I'm less than 1/3 of the way in and already I'm enjoying the journey tremendously.  Has anyone else read it, and what did you think?

I just read it last week and I don't know -- maybe my expectations were too high because I was kinda bored.  I felt like it had such potential and then stayed essentially a romance, and a romance with slightly creepy elements due to time travel.  I was expecting some major revelations at the end that didn't come.

I ordered The Lovely Bones at the same time as The Time Traveler's Wife and just started reading that today.  Wonderful so far.  And yeah, can you tell I bought two books because of movie trailers?  Sad but true   I've been doing far too muh textbook reading lately and needed to intersperse with fiction (slightly-less-trashy-than-Stackhouse-fiction, which was fun for the beach but hardly great literature).

[Desmodus]

I hate to admit it because of the esteem in which I hold the people who recommended it to me, but I was kind of "meh" over The Lovely Bones.  Maybe I've read too much genre fiction, but it just didn't deliver the big pow I expected.  But it also didn't provide the beautiful journey of some of my favorite mainstream authors like Isabel Allende (who one friend compared this author to).

In other new book releases, though, I was excited to see there is a new Pat Conroy book out.  The critics have pretty much slammed it, but after The Prince of Tides (the book, not the movie) and Beach Music, I have big love for Conroy.

[Seaboy]

Oh, the Conroy review I read was highly uncomplimentary.  I wish I could write somethnig that would cause people tp react in any way! 

[Desmodus]

If it's an author I already love, I usually read it anyway and form my own opinion.  Critics aren't necessarily attuned to my taste and sometimes they're trying so hard to make an author fit the critic's idea of what or how the author should have written that they can't see a good thing when they read it.

I think that's especially true if an author departs from their own past style or subject matter.

[wolfram]

There's a really great article at io9 with Michael Chabon talking about fandom. Recommended read! http://io9.com/5406069/geeking-out-about-genres-with-michael-chabon

[Martini Maestro]

That is a great piece.  So many good points, and I love how he slams the rampant snobbery on both sides of the genre fence.

[Martini Maestro]

I thought this was awesome.  At least one author you like is probably on this list, so go in with your sense of humor warmed up...

 http://laurenleto.wordpress.com/readers-by-author/

[chasa]

Based on the examples in this post, I totally need to buy this book:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/10/little-billys-letter.html

In the 1990s Bill Geerhart was an unemployed, not-so aspiring screenwriter in his 30s. To pass the time, he channeled his inner child, 10-year-old Billy, and started writing letters to famous and infamous people and institutions. These letters, written in pencil on elementary school ruled paper, asked funny but relevant questions to politicians, serial killers, movie stars, lobbyists, CEOs, and celebrity lawyers.

Geerhart saved copies of his letters and the replies he got back. This week, Harper Collins published them in a book called Little Billy's Letters: An Incorrigible Inner Child's Correspondence with the Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Bewildered. The publisher gave us permission to run some of our favorites. Enjoy!

Just great stuff.

[Desmodus]

So, is anyone else planning on buying either the new Sookie Stackhouse (May 4) or the new addition to the Twilight saga (June 5)?  I'm sure I'll get a hardback copy of Dead in the Family, but that Bree Tanner book is a big ol' question mark for me.

[The Oracle]

There's a new Twilight book?  I saw a book by SMeyer advertised, but the commercial made it sound like it was something separate.

What ever happened to Midnight Sun? Did she just throw that baby out with the bathwater when she pitched that epic wobbly a while back?

DitF isn't even on my radar, yet. I'm still trying to be good and wait until after True Blood season 3 to delve into Club Dead. I'm not worried as long as I've got my bevy of D'Angeline lovelies to keep me occupied. I've got an Amazon alert set up to notify me when Naamah's Kiss comes out in paperback, soon. I do foresee a rare hardback purchase in my near future, but it'll likely be the follow-up, Naamah's Curse.

[wolfram]

I think I heard that it was a novella, O. From what I know of Midnight Sun, which is pretty much just picked up from the airwaves and the cultural aether, Midnight Sun is indeed down the drain since the whole internet posted it and whatnot.

[Desmodus]

Which is a shame, because she hadn't even taken it to the end of the first book.

Bree Tanner is supposed to be a spin-off of some events in Eclipse, I believe.  According to Wiki*

The novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, which tells the story of a newborn vampire who appeared in Eclipse, will be published on June 5, 2010 as a hardcover book...

[The Oracle]

Meh. If it's not another 300 or so pages of the purplest rambling prose devoted to the effulgent secksayness of the big, prissy, sparkling diamond that is Wardo, I just can't be arsed.