WWW Wednesday 3-26-2014

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

• What are you currently reading?

I met the gorgeous and amazingly-adorned Ava Morgan at ConDFW last month. She was in steampunk garb every day, with an ability to carry it off that I admired and envied. To my delight, her book, The Lady Machinist, is turning out to be just as delightful.

Lydia Dimosthenis detests pirates, especially those of British ilk. The lady machinist will do anything to protect her island home of Aspasia from the scurvy knaves, even if it means crafting seven-foot clockwork soldiers to drive intruders away. When her automatons catch the eye of a charming yet stubborn ambassador from New Britannia, she is given an offer that she truly cannot refuse. But that doesn’t stop her from trying….

Give it a try. I’m enjoying the heck out of it.

• What did you recently finish reading?

UK cover

I finally read The Cuckoo’s Calling by JK Rowling Robert Galbraith. And what a remarkable book. It’s so rich in texture and detail, and her ability to plot is shown to advantage in the mystery genre.

I ordered my copy from the UK back when the news first broke that Rowling had been outted as the author of a mystery that had been favorably reviewed but hadn’t had great sales. Now the inside back flap reveals that she is the author. People who bought the book before the reveal, before the cover used her name, now have collectors’ items.

US Cover

I can’t wait for the next book and I’m sure it won’t sit on my shelf as long. I have all Rowling’s books in hardcover, all from the UK, and will continue that collection in my personal library. I have a thing about the original spellings and word usages before they’re Americanized, as you probably know if you’ve hung around planetpooks long. Plus in this case the cover is just much nice in the UK edition. The US leaves me a bit cold. I never would have picked it up just by the cover.

I do wonder that nobody has talked to her about her career trajectory. I mean, jumping genres constantly is never going to build her readership, or so I’ve heard. Just sayin.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

There’s a good chance I’ll read the print ARC of an amazing dark epic fantasy I’ve been hearing a lot about, because it’s different seeing words in print, and I may make a few last second tweaks. Yes, it could happen. ARCs are available for reviewers now, just contact publicist at furytriad dot com.

 

What about you? What have you been reading lately? Put the link to your WWW Wednesday entry in comments, or just tell us!

 

WWW Wednesday 11-06-2013

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

 

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

 

• What are you currently reading?

Not the real cover, just a placeholder until the real one is created, and omg I can’t wait.

See where it says KC Burroughs? That’s me playing around with the idea of publishing my fantasy series without ‘Patricia’ on the cover. But then it was pointed out to me that these days, the only writers who use initials only are women, and so that attempt to neuter the gender impact of an author’s name is ineffective. The only way to have a neuter-gender name is to choose a name that could be used either way. Aha! you might say. Pat Burroughs does that quite well!

Except I am not and never have been Pat, and the fact that so many people on their own, without ever having been told to, call me Pat, has always been a source of annoyance. So I would be using a name I don’t like for myself. So the heck with it, I guess I will remain Patricia, since my other attempts at coming up with a pseudonym met with less than enthusiastic response.

But that’s all digression. The fact is, I’m a big fat tease. I’m rereading This Crumbling Pageant because I’m now–finallly–writing the second book in the Triad, And the Dead Shall Live. Or The Dead Shall Live. Or Dead Shall Live. [Do you sense a lot of experimentation behind the scenes?] I am at that point where I haven’t sunk into the skins of these character I know and love so well, nor have I recaptured their language and their speech patterns. So it’s a bit of a slog and rereading is necessary. Thus my initial nanowrimo efforts are strained and slow, but at least I’m making progress.

Beyond that–I am so much in love with this world and these characters and my recent trip to the British Isles has filled me with inspiration, texture and detail for these books. Thank you Dallas weather for being damp and chilly since our return, which means I have brought of bit of the old countries with me, and can sink even more deeply into those worlds.

Don’t forget to sign up for my Fury Triad updates. Won’t spam you, promise! But there will be free stuff there that is available nowhere else. Just sayin’.

I’m also reading The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by the beloved Madeleine L’Engle. I’ve had this book for many years–it’s from my Embarrassment of Riches list. I won’t be reading it straight through, but each dip into it is something I truly enjoy. L’Engle had one of those kinds of lives I read about and envied, from the exotic [to me] childhood, to the big farmhouse where she raised her kids and spent the end of her life, when not living in NYC.

Reading her memoirs makes me ache for a different kind of life, sometimes, but that’s why I love reading. It allows me to experience many lives, many worlds.

And if the author name rings a bell but you don’t remember why, she’s the author of the classic A Wrinkle in Time and many other science fiction novels, young adult novels, adult novels, memoirs and such.

As a side note, one of the many, many things I love about being part of Book View Cafe is moments like the one where I mentioned my earlier inability to read this book because my own travails with elderly family members cut too quick to the bone and I couldn’t bring myself to read about someone else’s. And a BVC member responded that she was a friend of Madeleine’s and knew her during ‘the summer of the great-grandmother’ and went on to share some insights of that period. I can’t begin to list the ways my life has been enriched by this wonderful publishing cooperative of professional writers who let me into their midst.

• What did you recently finish reading?

The UK Cover. He is sitting down on the US cover. Also, I just found out this book is available in audio with him reading. Be still my soul!

I picked up The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography at a used book store in Youghal, Ireland and started reading it and finished it on the flight home from Heathrow. I adore Stephen Fry. I can’t figure out how his autobiographies strike me so close to the heart and make me think, I know that feeling. I understand that feeling. When we are so different in gender, in sexuality–well, we both prefer men, so maybe not so different there? ahem–and background. He’s a brilliant writer as well as a very funny one, but he turns a brutal microscope on himself, which explains the front cover blurb on the UK edition I bought: “Heartbreaking, a delight. The Times.”  A heartbreaking delight, indeed. But I insist you read Moab Is My Washpot first, since it is the first of his autobiographies and precedes this one. [The title alone is enough reason to love this book.] Every time he refers to an experience from his early life in The Fry Chronicles, it makes me want to go back and reread Moab Is My Washpot. And then of course, this book ends on a cliffhanger with a capital C, which makes me yearn for the next.

Now, this is not what you expect from WWW Wednesday, but this is my blog and I am going to do it anyway. I was going to link to a youtube video of Stephen Fry for the uninitiated so they can see just a bit of what makes him such a beloved media figure in the UK but the first thing that popped up was–omg–Craig Ferguson explaining that Stephen Fry was going to be his only guest for the entire hour earlier this year, and people, if you think I am going to go write when there is 46 minutes of unseen [by me] Stephen Fry you don’t know Pooks.

So with that, I offer up this.

 

• What do you think you’ll read next?

And since I still haven’t received this book, I am going to repeat what I said last time I answered this question! Also, because it’s easy, and allows me to watch Stephen Fry sooner, and then get to writing like a good writer should have already done.

Smooch!

Color me bouncing and flailing, because I am going to get to read Broken Homes without ordering it from the UK! I was chosen to receive an advance copy through goodreads. Can’t wait!

I haven’t actually read any reviews–and don’t want to–because I don’t want any spoilers. But I did see this and read this much of it, which seems a good thing to share with you from Liz Bourke on the Tor site:

Broken Homes is the fourth instalment in Ben Aaronovitch’s bestselling Peter Grant series, after last year’s Whispers Under Ground. If you’re new to the joy that’s PC Peter Grant and the mysteries he investigates under the supervision of DCI Thomas Nightingale—England’s last officially practising wizard—Broken Homes is not the best place to start. Unlike Moon Over Soho or Whispers Under Ground, it doesn’t give you much time to get your feet under you before it starts setting up its dominos and knocking them down.

I don’t need time to get my feet under me. I just need the next episode of Peter Grant, which by the way will be real episodes soon, since it’s going to be a TV show.

And I need to figure out why she spells Raleigh without the ‘i’ whilst I’m researching.

Finally, I’m slipping this bit of research reading into this blog entry because not only is it on my list of things to be read very soon, but it also fits today’s color scheme. Add to this that I bought this old book in Youghal, Ireland in the same old Elizabethan shop where I bought The Fry Chronicles, and I simply must share it–That Great Lucifer: A Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, by Margaret Irwin. This edition is from 1961; the book was originally published in 1960. I love this cover design, and the dust jacket is perfect. I picked it up for 7.50 euros, which might not be bargain, but it’s going to look great on my shelves, and as we’ve discussed before, I can be shallow that way.

Now that I’ve bought this old beauty I suppose I should also do a bit of research and determine its likely historical worth, as in, is this a respected writer of her day? How helpful will it actually be? All I know is that it’s lovely, it feels good in my hands, I will read it, and I will love adding it to my personal library of keepers.

What about you? What have you been reading lately? Put the link to your WWW Wednesday entry in comments, or just tell me!

Sometimes, All That Matters Is the Cover

I have to own this book. Possess and caress this book. Have it on my shelf.

The title–Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe–grabbed me.

GRABBED ME.

The cover just upped the ante.

Ordered!

And I didn’t even read to see what it’s about.

Are you ever that much a victim of a book’s cover?

 

WWW Wednesday 3-13-13

WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

• What are you currently reading?

I feel absolutely decadent. I’m propped up in bed with a hot cup of tea reading. The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett has been on my TBR pile for years.

What I’m Reading This Morning

I spied the lovely cover and snatched it up and bought it when my Kindle was fairly new, and I never managed to make myself actually read the book because it was a print book and not on my Kindle. I’ve come to the conclusion that such decisions were largely made because I find the adjustable font-size on my Kindle so much easier on my eyes, but at that time all I knew was that any time I picked up a print book I put it down quickly and went back to the Kindle.

You’ll also see my current Kindle on the bed (linked above–the Kindle Touch). It’s my second. The reason you might not recognize it is because it’s in a leather cover. This makes me purr with happiness. The feel of it is much like an expensive old book and it totally satisfies any desire I have to hold something weightier or more lush or more “real” than an electronic device. Plus, it’s so beautiful. Verso makes many beautiful covers but is a bit pricier than you have to go. There are some great covers for 9.99.

I’m also working in bed. I have notes I made in my Moleskine. Gotta get to work on the current novel, which has me more excited than I can even express. But enough of this, back to what I’m reading. I’m really, really enjoying The Magicians and Mrs Quent. I can’t imagine this book sitting on my shelf looking pretty all these years while I ignore it.  I am now waiting for Mr Rafferdy to discover that he is a magician, which I am sure he must be. (I hope.)

“You do read nicely, Miss Lockwell,” Lady Marsdel said one evening. “You have no impulse to insert your own comments or observations. You are content to defer to the wisdom of the author at choosing the best words. Quite unlike Mr Rafferdy, who turns everything into a comedy. You cannot trust him at all when he reads. He once tried to convince me that a book of famous members of Assembly contained an entire chapter pertaining to monkeys.”

“Well, if it didn’t, it should have,” Mr Rafferdy said to Miss Lockwell in a conspiratorial tone.

I am totally crushy on Mr Rafferdy. I’m glad to know this trilogy is already complete so I can keep reading without waiting for the rest to get written. I also will be keeping this book in my library. It’s pretty and thoroughly enjoyable. Two good reasons to call it a keeper instead of culling it out. It totally fits in with my desire to only have books I really, really like on my physical library shelves, not every book that I’ve ever managed to drag into the house. I no longer keep books just because they are (gasp) books.

I’m also listening to Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I’ve seen it all over WWW Wednesday and now I know why. So far, loving it. A weird cult of code-breakers (that is not Google) and wonderfully quirky genius coding-chick (who does work for Google) and a 24-Hour Book Store that is very, very strange… that is a piss-poor description but it’s the best I can do right now. Quirky, smart, fun.

And I’m also reading a book by Katharine Kerr that is not yet available for you to read. ~taunts you~

• What did you recently finish reading?

I mentioned this one before, Eleven Pipers Piping: A Father Christmas Mystery by C C Benison. It’s the second in the series, and I really am enjoying them. This time it’s Burns Night and there is such a blizzard coming down, half the participants have bailed out. They are left with eleven pipers, Tom Christmas (the local vicar) and an unexpected stranger with ties to the village from the distant past. All the elements needed for a murder and a mystery. Benison does an excellent job of characterization and clues, and is particularly deft at having Tom seem like not only a real dad and a real man but a real vicar with all that entails–and yet the books are never religious or even about religion. An interesting touch is that he’s raising his young daughter as Jewish, to respect her preference which reflects his late wife’s wishes.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

No idea. No freaking idea.

Paisely Vandermeir requests the pleasure of your presence.

What about you? What have you been reading lately? Put the link to your WWW Wednesday entry in comments, or just tell me!

I’m keeping a running total of my reading challenges–the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge (see banner at the bottom of the right sidebar) and my own challenge, the Embarrassment of Riches Challenge. The January wrap-up is here and here is the February Wrap-Up!

 

 

Decisions, decisions.

Pay attention. At the end, there will be a test.

I cleared out (well, still working on it) all my books that just exist in my life as “books” rather than “books I love for some reason” and am instead, building a library of books that are special for some reason or another. Books I love. Books I have sentimental attachment to. Books I admire deeply. Books that mean something.

And I came across this old, stained slipcase with a book in it as I was filling another box of books to give away.

Meh.

Pulled it out. Huh. I have never read this book. I don’t know why I have it. I do know it wasn’t on the shelves in our home when I was growing up. No sentimental value here.

Vague recollection of writing a Junior theme on Nathaniel Hawthorne. Very vague. Read The Scarlet Letter. Didn’t love. Again, never read this one. Didn’t even remember the title correctly. I didn’t know there was a second “the” in it. Hmm. Ho-hum.

Check publication date. 1935. Almost 80 years old. Still, not doing anything for me. Check abebooks and amazon, not a valuable book, either.

This is difficult. It’s kind of a cool book but I don’t even remember what it’s about. (I wrote that theme. I assume at some point I knew.)

And really nice illustrations at the top of each chapter.

Okay, Mr Hawthorne, here is the deal. I am going to read your book and hope it’s a keeper. Because if it isn’t, I’m not sure what to do with it.

For now, it’s part of the TBR and will be read at some point this year as part of the challenge.

First sentence of the prologue:

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a Novel.

So, dear reader. What would you do? Let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume this book doesn’t keep my attention and I end up not considering it “special” by definition of “stories that appeal to me.”

Do you think it’s pretty enough to keep anyway? On the shelf it’s not. Open, it is. But… is that enough?

Side-discussion welcome: How shallow can Pooks get, holy chickadees, to judge a literary classic by its pretty-quotient?

I’m all ears. Okay, eyes.

And depending on how you do on this test, I have another for you. Only, it will be MUCH more difficult. Promise!