February 2012
34 posts
8 tags
Adverbs, by Daniel Handler
It is difficult to decide whether this novel is haphazardly put together or methodically crafted. The book leads you through 16 (arguably 17) different stories, full of characters that either reappear later on or are never mentioned again, united by their common living space of San Francisco. In a sense, the chapters seem like short diary entries, all with Handler’s signature dark humor,...
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“Love is hourly, too. There are stories about people who have loved someone...”
– Adverbs
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Favorite Books
1984
Artemis Fowl
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
The Book Thief
A Certain Slant of Light
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
East
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Fahrenheit 451
The Fault in Our Stars
Feed
The Floating Island
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Harry Potter
Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid
The Host
Inkheart
...
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“But my secret special kickass chivalry is tainted, obviously, by obviousness....”
– Adverbs
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Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, by...
“Life is a turbulent journey, fraught with confusion, heartbreak and inconvenience. This book will not help.”
Such are the immediately recognizable words, on the back of a hardcover’s dust jacket, from Lemony Snicket, pseudo-author of the wonderfully sad books known collectively as A Series of Unfortunate Events. Snicket continues his trademark dark humor in this short book...
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The Disenchantments, by Nina LaCour
The societal preoccupation with answering the question “What will you do after high school?” is portrayed beautifully in this new novel by Nina LaCour. “College, of course,” seems to the be the obvious response for the majority of high school graduates. But Colby and Bev are not the majority; they’ve planned to hit the open road with their admittedly awful band,...
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I'm only about 50 or so pages into The...
At the rate I'm going, I'll need a new bookshelf...
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I was browsing my Goodreads recommendations when I...
I hovered the cursor over it to read the description and decide whether or not I wanted to add it to my Amazon wish list, when suddenly:
A gripping YA supernatural novel set in New Orleans: TWILIGHT with a ghostly twist.
Uninterested. Utterly and completely uninterested.
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“A la muerte poco le importan las conciencias.”
– Marina
I should probably work on buying the books that...
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Would anyone care to add to this list?
Books I currently own (but have not read):
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails
Descent into Chaos: The US & the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, & Central Asia
El ruido de las cosas al caer (The Sound of Things Falling)
El juego del ángel (The Angel’s Game)
Books I’m waiting to receive in the mail:
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
The...
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Head for cover, F-bombs are going to fall.
labyrinth-without-edge:
So, there’s this blog called Stop John Green, with the description “I won’t rest until John Green stops writing his shitty portrayal of young girls.” She (I’m going to assume it’s a woman) has only posted two things so far, as she seems to have made her blog in February. The first one has this lovely offering concerning Looking for Alaska:
…except looking for...
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“La envidia es un ciego que quiere arrancarte los ojos.”
– Marina
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“La naturaleza es como un niño que juega con nuestras vidas. Cuando se cansa de...”
– Marina
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Marina, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (English translation...
Many people have discovered Carlos Ruiz Zafon by his book The Shadow of the Wind, his first adult narrative that has become a global success. It should be kept in mind that his novel Marina, antecedent to the previously mentioned book, is aimed at a younger audience and, by the same thought, shouldn’t be examined under the same criteria as its descendent.
Marina is narrated by Oscar Drai,...
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Marina, por Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spanish Edition)
Muchos han descubierto a Carlos Ruiz Zafón por su obra La Sombra del Viento, su primera narrativa para adultos que se convirtió en un éxito mundial. Se debería tener en mente que la novela Marina, antecesora a la obra previamente mencionada, está dirigida al público juvenil y, por el mismo pensamiento, no debería ser examinada bajo los mismos criterios de evaluación que su descendiente.
...
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“Nada mejor que leer acerca de los problemas de los demás para olvidar los...”
– Marina
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“A veces, las cosas más reales sólo suceden en la imaginación, Oscar. Sólo...”
– Marina
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“De nada sirve toda la geografía, trigonometría y aritmética del mundo si no...”
– Marina
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“Habrá advertido que no tenemos electricidad, Oscar. Lo cierto es que no creemos...”
– Marina
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“Como ladrón no valía un céntimo, pero como mentiroso debo confesar que siempre...”
– Marina
lalumieredemelies asked: Just read your review. It was very thorough and unsurprisingly - completely right about everything. You hit the nail on the head at the ending. Those photographs had such potential for an amazing, haunting story and we're left with a rich kid's X-Men featuring Doctor Who's Oods as the villains.
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Marina (Carlos Ruiz Zafón)
JF: Yo creo que lo mejor es que demos media vuelta y nos larguemos de aquí.
Oscar: No seas gallina.
JF: La gente no aprecia las gallinas en lo que valen. Sin ellas no habrian huevos.
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Starting Point: 1979-1996, by Hayao Miyazaki
This book provides a kind of backstage pass into the inner workings of a celebrated artist. It is a compilation of essays, articles, and transcriptions of interviews about the origins of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation career, and the founding of Studio Ghibli with business partner Isao Takahata. The collection offers a peek into the inspiration behind many of Miyazaki’s award-winning...
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“Contrary to what some people think, a plot is not ipso facto a unity if it...”
– Poetics (Aristotle)
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“Nunca te fíes a nadie, especialmente de la gente a la que admiras. Ésos son los...”
– La Sombra del Viento (via labyrinth-without-edge)
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“They told me of color, that it was an illusion of the eye, an event in the...”
– The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. I (via labyrinth-without-edge)
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“Kindness without the promise of profit is an impossibility. It is a physical...”
– The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. I (via labyrinth-without-edge)
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“Nothing will change—nothing—so long as each individual awaits preferment rather...”
– The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. II (via labyrinth-without-edge)
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“A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or...”
– The Apology of Socrates
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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by...
I’d been hearing good things about it for months, but never anything specific. It was always, “Oh I read that book, it was really good, you should read it!” or something similar. Never too many details, but with a title like this, it’s not hard to pique your interest just a little bit. However, the don’t judge a book by its cover motto applies nicely here, simply...