Coffeespoons

Why I liked Crashed (Junior Bender #1)... because Nancy Pearl included it among her "under the radar" reads for this summer , and I do like trying books not many people have read. Then again, this isn't really a reason why I liked the book. More like a reason why I'm inclined to like it, so... because the plot's tight and moves along quickly, and the writing's smooth and witty. because of who Junior Bender is--a crook (with a heart of gold, of course) who does detective work for other crooks. And in addition to being a career criminal, he's a career reader. Sold.  I highlighted a few sections. Read and see if you don't like him, or at least, how he spends is off-work days. “It’s true. Like it or not, I’m a professional burglar.” “You mean, like full-time?” She stretched the words out derisively. “Well, you see, that’s one of the nice things about being a burglar. You only work a couple of times a month.” “What do you do the rest ...

img src These books about books are difficult for book-lovers to ignore, I think. You put the word "bookstore" in the title, with a quirky name and, bam! Next bibliophile that comes across it is going to pick it up for sure. Well, in my case, I checked the Amazon page . I'd been seeing the hype around the novel. So, bookshop + quirky name + interesting book description + hype = Yes, I will get you. My initial question, though, was whether I'd get the print book or the ebook. I'd also read this interview of Robin Sloane implying that, in the age of ebooks, you have to find reasons for buyers to invest in the print book. I thought that was a pretty smart idea. There has to be added value to the print book, otherwise people like me, who try not to overburden our currently overburdened book shelves, are just going to get the ebook. So I checked out what added value the print book had. I usually get the print book if: 1) I know the book's going to be a...

I was aiming to keep it simple this year, but couldn't help signing up to the Whodunit Reading Challenge , sponsored by the wonderful site, Gathering Books . To quote from the original post, ...to start 2011, we embrace books that are shrouded in secrecy, suspense, and mystery (and crime, too) The challenge runs from January until June 30th, and there are 4 levels of participation: Novice Profiler: 1-2 books Crime Detective: 3-5 books Mythic Crime Buster: 6-8 books Criminal Genius/Mastermind: 9 books and above I'm signing up for the Crime Detective level , so I shall now scour my TBR for at least 5 suspense, mystery, and crime stories. I have to make this challenge coincide with my 2011 reading plan , which is to read primarily from my TBR. Then again, I've just looked around at the books on my desk and below my dresser, and I think I can easily find five.  The beautiful thing about this challenge is that the books can be for any age group--children, ...

This is me trying to catch up with all those reviews I want to write... When I was a teenager, I remember watching a movie with a kid and a ghost of a woman in white. I loved that movie, and have always thought that it was entitled The Woman in White . So, I thought that the movie and Wilkie Collins' novel were one and the same. Because of my vague recollections of that movie, it took me until page 100 or so to figure out that both were completely different stories. In the first place, there wasn't a kid in the novel. In the second, there was no ghost either. And so, curiosity finally got the better of me and I googled the movie. Apparently, it was entitled The Lady in White . Not so far off then, was I? The Woman in White , however, is one of those classics that readers keep saying is unputdownable. Now, I've read my share of classics, and let me tell you, though most of them are beautiful reads, few of them are unputdownable. Then again, most classics are so much ...

Living in a tropical country, I never thought that snow could be so riveting. (Heck, living in a tropical country, I'm hardly riveted by the sun either. I do like the beaches, though. Anyway...) Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow was in my To Be Read shelf for almost two years, and I am proud to say it has finally graduated to the Read-shelf. Yay! (cue graduation music). I started it several times and, more owing to my shortened attention span than the writing, have put it down in favor of the shiniest new bestseller Lately, though, in the throes of Stieg Larsson withdrawal, I began looking for more mystery novels from authors of Scandinavian persuasion. And so I pick up this book once more. And finished it in my own sweet time. And find it slower than Larsson, but infinitely more intelligent. Smilla Jaspersen, a Greenlander in Denmark, lives in a tenement for second-class citizens. She has no friends, except for a six-year-old boy, Isaiah, another Greenlander...

Finally! I read the latest Sookie book! For those unfamiliar, the Sookie books are more correctly known as The Southern Vampire Mysteries , written by Charlaine Harris. The books are the inspiration for HBO's awesome, awesome vampire dramedy series, True Blood . No, the books aren't as gritty as the series. Plus, Alan Ball, the creator of True Blood, takes liberties with characters and plot lines. However, the books are the perfect fare for urban fantasy/romance fans or English majors who like having guilty pleasures. Though, come to think of it, those two sets of people aren't mutually exclusive. Anyway... [If you watch True Blood but do not read the books and do not want to know what may happen in True Blood, DO NOT READ the next part. In other words, SPOILERS AHEAD.] In this 10th Sookie Stackhouse novel, Sookie and her supernatural friends have emerged from the Fae War not entirely victorious. Many of her friends have been lost, including Sookie's fairy c...

From Dead to Worse Read: 27 June 2009 How I got it… borrowed it from a smart and talented poet friend who is hooked on Harris Why I read it… check out my other Charlaine Harris marathons here and here . those should explain it What's the story? something about how they coped with stuff after the big explosion something about Alcide and a play for power something about Bill and Eric, I think Oh, and a surprise about Sookie's background What I liked about it… More Sookie and Eric ...what can i say? I'm a fan. What I didn’t like about it… the fact that i can't remember the story and I had to Google it the fact that, after Googling it, I still can't remember much of it. it's just one of those books you have to read because you've invested in the entire series already and you can't not read one of the books in the series. Rating: Dead and Gone Read: 28 June 2009 How I got it… Again, borrowed from my paranormal-romance-as-a-metaphor-loving poet fri...

Read: 6/3/09 5/5 stars Another murder mystery set in Russia that I love. Although the last one of this category was Gorky Park , which I read around 15 years ago. In 2008, Child 44 made waves in the book world after a fierce bidding war over it during the London Book Fair . And, as a testament to its hype, director and producer Ridley Scott bought the film rights for the book even before the book fair. Child 44 made news again when it made the Man Booker Prize longlist last year. However, it wasn't all good news as a few critics decried the entry of what others term an "airport novel" into the prestigious list , thus edging out better written literary works. Strictly speaking, it is an airport read. The book is fast-paced and engrossing, capable of being consumed in one sitting. But the book is not another Da Vinci Code (read: "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"). Set in the 1950s, the book's success lies in the fact that, amidst the murder myste...

Because they're just so juicy... Dead to the World Read: 5/31/09 4/5 stars One word: Eric. The Nordic vampire who has more power than Bill, and definitely more gallant. This is the book in the series that I've been waiting to read. Here, Sookie discovers Eric beside the road in the middle of the night, running towards her house. His memory was stolen by a coven of witches who want to take control of Eric's area, both economically and politically. Yes, it sounds lame and contrived. But who cares? It's Sookie Stackhouse!:) Anyway, Eric is not the vampire that he once was--he's gentler, more sensitive, and more inclined to reveal his emotions to Sookie. And, whether he has his memory or not, he's not a wimp. So, the anticipated romance between the two flares up, now that Bill is out of the picture. And I just love it! Dead as a Doornail Read: 6/3/09 3/5 stars One of the sub-plots of the previous book is Jason's disappearance.Turns out he was kidnapped by a were...

Read: 5/29/09 4/5 stars I'm a big fan of Dante. Big fan. When I read The Inferno way back in college, I found the concept and imagery astounding, and I acquired a new understanding of the term "poetic justice." So, naturally, I'd been curious about Pearl's reinterpretation of Dante as a serial killer's inspiration. What a surprise this book turned out to be. What I imagined to be a straightforward mystery turned out to be part doctoral dissertation and part whodunit. The book's main detectives are none other than acclaimed poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow , James Russell Lowell , Oliver Wendell Holmes , who formed part of the original Dante Club, and publisher and poet James Fields . The events are set during the period when Longfellow was in the process of translating Dante to English, with the help of other members of the Dante Club. However, these men of letters have to turn themselves into men of action when they realize that the series of gruesome mu...

Read: 4/2/09 2/5 stars This book should have been entitled "heartburn." Because that's what I got after reading it. I picked up Heartsick for three reasons: it was on sale. there was a massive publicity campaign when it was coming out. (or massive enough to me who reads the ads Shelfari has). it's taking me a while to get through Titus Groan after I picked it up because it took me a while to get through The Wind-up Bird Chronicles . I think the only thing I'm happy about after reading Heartsick , Chelsea Cain's first novel, is that I'm one more book closer to my initial 50-book target for the year. The book capitalizes on the the Clarice/Hannibal Lecter relationship, but doesn't do it too well. Perhaps what seems original in Heartsick is that the heinous serial killer is a woman, Gretchen Lowell. And not just any woman--a beautiful woman, at that. Two years before the main story opens, Gretchen captures Archie Sheridan, the head of the task force mea...

Read: 2/1/09 4 stars This book has been waiting on my shelf for months now, and I got to picking it up because I was looking for something light and fun. Turns out, I picked perfectly. For those of you who haven't--Stephanie Plum just got laid off and can't seem to find any job for her. So, she turns to her cousin Vinnie, who gets her a job as a bounty hunter, the type that brings in FTAs (Failure to Appear, which is what they call people who fail to show up for their court date.) The money is immensely attractive to Stephanie, but her first case is somewhat complicated since she has to bring in Joe Morelli, a cop who was accused of murdering an unarmed person and a man with whom Stephanie has had a colorful history. The book is funny, and the action really moves along quickly, but what I really liked was Stephanie's character and the predicament she was in--not having a job, therefore no money, and having to do whatever was necessary just so she could live. That situation ...

By other standards, this is not really a marathon. Specifically, I'm referring to the standards of the power readers at Play Book Tag , who can down 10 books or more in a week. By my standards, though, considering that we're only a little over three weeks into the year, and one-third of the books I've read are Charlaine Harris', I therefore declare this as a marathon. Book 1: Club Dead The third book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, alternatively known as the Southern Vampire mysteries. For those unfamiliar with the Southern Vampire mysteries, the first book in this series, Dead Until Dark, is the basis for the HBO series True Blood . And because I seem to be into vampires (no, not because of Twilight. Although I did enjoy reading those...), I picked up on this series right away after my brief infatuation with Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series (which I'm totally over now). Anyway, Club Dead features a new and, perhaps, unwelcome development in the story-...

Ignorant me always thought Tourette's was a condition that made the individual involuntarily spout out obscenities. This book educated me. Turns out that Tourette's is a tic, and the individual does feel the need to get rid of this tic verbally, but the ensuing exclamations are not necessarily obsceneties. They can be plays on the language. Lethem created a great character here. Lionel Essrog, our protagonist, is an intelligent adult with Tourette's syndrome. So, because of his verbal tics and other compulsions, everyone, even those closest to him, think he's crazy and therefore stupid. The book is touted as a detective story, though I found it less of a detective story than a homage to Brooklyn (duh. title.) and a fascinating insight into the mind of a Touretter. Essrog is one of four orphans taken under the tutelage of small-time mobster, Frank Minna. Essrog and his fellow orphans brand themselves as the Minna Men, working for Frank well into their adulthood. However,...