Hello book dragons! Here we are in the second week of June and summer is in full bloom already! I'm excited about all the latest summer reads, including the ever-popular beach reads. I am also excited about upcoming fall books and the cooler fall temps, as right now, Maple Valley is having days of sunshine and 95 degree temps that are making all the fur-bearing critters in the area miserable, from their paws getting blistered on the street to not having enough water to stay hydrated and cool when the sun hits the porches and makes them hotter than ovens midday to suppertime. Though we thankfully have AC, our feral cat friends can't come indoors due to allergies and enjoy it, so I'm feeling bad for just putting out dishes of water and a bit of food and treats for them. Anyway, after attending the library's summer used book sale, I've got some fun beach rads and a book thby Andre Norton that I read when I was 7 years old coming up on my TBR. Enjoy some poolside books, friends!
I find this proliferation of fake AI books disgusting. It's a slap in the face of the author, whose work is being "rewritten" and sold under false pretenses, and its a scam for readers who think they're getting a book by an author they love, when what they're getting is ersatz prose. FOR SHAME, AI!
AI
Clones of Books Are Showing Up on Amazon
Here
is how this works. A real book from an author (self-pub or
traditional) gets listed on Amazon. Then, some scammer thinking there
might be interest in that book, uses AI "read" the book and
rewrite the contents using different language. The name of the author
is changed, but stays close enough to stay confusing. A cover image
is generated (in
this case some sort of deepfake that sorta-kinda looks like the
person in question .
Then, you upload this AI-abomination to Amazon, charge a couple of
bucks for a Kindle only version (or a few dollars more than that for
an AI generated audiobook), and then you hope to catch the coattails
of the legitimate books’s marketing, publicity, and other awareness
to sell a few copies. This is not exactly a new strategy (if you have
ever fallen for the "summary of East of Eden" versus the
real thing you know this) but like I wrote yesterday, the speed of
cheating differs by an order of magnitude.
This book sounds fantastic, and I can hardly wait to find a copy.
Reese always manages to put her fingers on the pulse of readers in the US.
Reese's
June Book Club Pick: The Phoenix Pencil Company
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison
King (Morrow) is the June
pick for Reese's Book Club, which
described the novel this way: "Part fantasy and part
cross-generational family saga, The Phoenix Pencil Company follows
Monica as she unearths the story of her grandmother's war-ridden
past. This magical debut is a rich narrative that showcases the
impact of inheritance and the quiet resilience of women across time."
Reese wrote: "A reclusive coder
uncovers a legacy of magic, espionage,
and family secrets. You won't want to
miss this one!"
I love Michelle Obama, and I'm excited that she has a new book forthcoming.
She's a class act, especially in contrast to the orange fascist's mail order Soviet bride.
Michelle
Obama Announces New Book Coming This Fall
I
really didn’t know what to expect from
Michelle Obama’s next book .
Becoming was a sensation, but it didn’t seem like it left a lot of
meat on the bone for more memoir/autobiography. And she doesn’t
seem interested in a straight-forwardly political book, though I
thought there was a slim chance (and maybe it is just my wishful
thinking) that a "here’s-what-I-believe" style book could
come as a precursor to a return to political life. That’s now what
this book is. The Looks is essentially a coffee table book of her
life in fashion. It is timed to prime gift book season (November
4th), and if you are going to do a fashion book, this is a pretty
interesting version of it:
"Featuring
the voices of Meredith Koop, Obama’s trusted stylist, as well as
her makeup artist Carl Ray, hairstylists Yene Damtew, Johnny Wright,
and Njeri Radway, and many of the designers who have dressed Obama
for notable events, The Look brings readers behind the scenes not
only to reveal how her most memorable looks came together but also to
tell a powerful story about how we present ourselves.
Not
something I myself care about, but I can see the appeal. Will be
curious to see how it sells.
YAY! Go Stephen Colbert, the best and smartest of the late night talk show hosts!
Stephen
Colbert Launches the Late Show Book Club
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is
launching a book club, and the first
selection is Samantha Harvey's Booker
Prize-winning novel Orbital
In an announcement posted on Instagram,
Stephen Colbert called Orbital "a beautiful novel about six
astronauts on the International Space Station going about their daily
tasks and pondering the meaning of life. It won the Booker Prize, and
it won the even more prestigious prize of being my first book club
pick."
Further updates about the book club
will be posted on the show's
Instagram page.
I've never heard of these books, but I will research them and try to get on the holds list in the library.
The
2024 Nebula Awards Winners
The
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the
winners of the 2024 Nebula Awards, recognizing outstanding science
fiction and fantasy, at the Nebula Awards Conference over the
weekend. The winners include: Someone
You Can Build a Nest In
by John Wiswell (Novel), The
Dragonfly Gambit
by A.D. Sui (Novella), “Negative
Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being"
by A.W. Prihandita (Novelette), “ Why
Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole"
by Isabel J. Kim (Short Story). Self-published works really are
taking off–Vanessa Ricci-Thode’s self-published novel, The
Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts,
won the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult
Fiction. In a category that is not wanting for options, that’s no
small thing! The Nebulas are voted on and presented by full, senior,
and associate SFWA members. You can find the
full list of winners here.
This looks like my kind of movie...introspective and different.
Movies:
Dracula
The first trailer has been released for
Dracula,
BAFTA Award winner Luc Besson's ( The
Professional, Dogman) adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel,
Deadline reported. Starring Caleb Landry Jones (Dogman) as the
legendary vampire, the cast also includes
Christoph Waltz, Matilda De Angelis, and Zouml; Bleu Sidel. Dracula opens in
French theaters July 30 via SND.
Besson, who also wrote the screenplay,
told Deadline last year that his
interest in the new movie wasn't
spurred by anything particular in the
Dracula tale but rather his lead
actor's appeal: "It's not Dracula, my
fascination is Caleb. We were just
chatting about other roles that could
work for him. I said, 'You'd be great
as Dracula.' Then, I thought, 'You
know what, I'm just going to write it.'
"
Swept Away by Robyn Carr is a contemporary romance with a plot that is a bit more intricate than the usual romance plot...it's also a page turner, perfect for a beach or pool side read. Carr, it should be noted, wrote the book that inspired one of my favorite streaming series, Virgin River. Here's the blurb: The
emotional story of a young woman’s journey as she leaves behind all the
things she thought she wanted only to discover who she really is. Robyn Carr explores the challenges facing women
today as they are valued for what’s on the outside rather than the
inside. Enjoy this classic favorite, previously published as Runaway Mistress.
Jennifer
Chaise is proud of her life. Coming from nothing, she’s used her beauty
to her advantage and is swept up in a glamorous world of wealth and
privilege as the mistress of a high-flying businessman. But when she
walks in on a violent scene in their Las Vegas hotel room, Jennifer
knows she can no longer ignore the truth about her boyfriend, and she
flees. Desperate to escape the men searching for her, she invents a
whole new persona—with a new look and a new name—as she hides out in a
small Nevada town.
Working as a waitress in the local diner, she
finds a mentor in Louise, a retired professor who takes her in. As
Jennifer begins to embrace a new life, she realizes how much was missing
from her old one: a sense of community and purpose… But it’s not easy
to simply disappear. Her neighbor Alex is a cop, and while he’s friendly
enough, he may also suspect that Jennifer is not what she seems.
Although
she is under constant threat of being discovered, Jennifer is surprised
to realize that, for the first time, she’s genuinely happy. Suddenly
this real world is all she wants. But will it be enough when her past
catches up with her?
I couldn't put this book down, and I loved that Jennifer's journey took her from a bimbo/slave to a friend to a whole community. She was smart and vulnerable and had a big heart beneath all the insecurity and fear. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone looking for a fast and romantic read about a woman's journey to find herself the life she deserves.
The Little French Bistro by Nina George is the 3rd book of hers that I've read, and as it's labeled "women's fiction," which is just a marketers way of saying contemporary romance read by mostly women, I was looking for a lot of growth of the main character, Marianne, but I wasn't looking for her sensual awakening and her odd romance that didn't seem like it would work, at first. But work it does, and the luscious prose glistens along the elegant plot that seems simple at first but unfurls into a complexity that delights readers all the way to the end. Here's the blurb: Marianne is stuck in a loveless, unhappy marriage. After
forty-one years, she has reached her limit, and one evening in Paris she
decides to take action. Following a dramatic moment on the banks of the
Seine, Marianne leaves her life behind and sets out for the coast of
Brittany, also known as “the end of the world.”
Here she
meets a cast of colorful and unforgettable locals who surprise her with
their warm welcome, and the natural ease they all seem to have, taking
pleasure in life’s small moments. And, as the parts of herself she had
long forgotten return to her in this new world, Marianne learns it’s
never too late to begin the search for what life should have been all
along.
With all the buoyant charm that made The Little Paris Bookshop a beloved bestseller, The Little French Bistro is a tale of second chances and a delightful embrace of the joys of life in France.
Perhaps because the main characters reminds me of myself, longing for a better life away from a husband who doesn't care for me at all anymore, and is, in fact, verbally abusive and degrading, I read this book in one sitting and really identified with Marianne and her need to find things like art and good food that sustain her soul and fill her heart with happiness. Though I'm not suicidal, like Marianne, I do feel very sad and lonely about how small and cold my life has become due to my husbands alcoholism and illnesses. Though I can't run away to Frnace, as our protagonist does, reading books like this gives me hope that one day I will be free and my life will be better. I'd give this delicious novel an A, and recommend it to anyone over the age of 40 who knows what its like to have a second chance at really living.
The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe is a devastating historical fiction novel based on the life of an actual prisoner of the death camps of WWII, Dita Kraus. Though it was a long and hefty tome, the prose was so strong that I could hardly put it down. Here's the blurb: Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz
prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked
her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.
Fourteen-year-old
Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken,
along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague,
Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When
Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight
precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards,
she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz. Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.
Based on Iturbe's novelization of Dita Kraus's experiences during
World War II, this novel details Kraus's early life in
Czechoslovakia, her love of reading, and the unusual existence of a
family camp and classroom (of sorts) for children within
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Kraus and her family arrived in 1942. The
first half of the book also establishes the teen's precarious
responsibility as keeper of the camp's eight prized but forbidden
volumes, and the threats, terror, and trauma of life in the camp where
hundreds were sent to the gas chambers daily. The second half of the book moves at a
quicker pace, reducing some events to cursory treatment. The epilogue, which offers additional
information about Adolf Hitler's objectives and a few of the individuals
featured in the book, will help answer some questions readers may have.
Sepia tones that evoke the era dominate the opening pages, while later scenes
in emphasize the dangerous, clandestine nature of
much of the activity at the camp.
Though the horrors of the death camps (and Auschwitz-Birkenau in particular) are fairy well known to students of history, this electrifying novel adds details and places/people to the narrative that are often chilling, but at the same time illuminates the vile nature of fascism and dictators whose lust for power and domination crush all before them without mercy. I'm not a fan of horror or gore, and yet I felt compelled to read all of Dita's story, not only to see who survived but to learn more about those who died for nothing more than their heritage or who they loved. I cried several times during this book, but I still felt it was an important read, because there are so many young people today who are being lied to about the reality of the Holocaust by the current administration. This book deserves an A, and should be required reading for every high school student in America.
The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska is a YA LGBTQ fantasy with plenty of romance, adventure and legendary monsters. Here's the blurb: In a snow-cloaked kingdom, two wicked
rivals secretly compete for the pure heart of a prince, only to discover
they might be falling for each other.
Karnawal
season is a time for mischief and revelry. For the next few weeks, all
will be wintry balls, glittery disguises, and nightly torch-lit
sleigh-parties.
Unbeknownst to the merrymakers, two
uninvited girls join the fun. Zosia and Marynka are drawn to each other
the moment they meet, until they discover they're rivals, who both have
their sights set on the prince's heart. If one consumes a pure heart,
she'll gain immeasurable power. Marynka plans to bring the prince's back
to her patron in order to prove herself. While Zosia is determined to
take his heart and its power for her own.
Their
ambition turns into a magical contest with both girls vying to keep the
prince out of the other's grasp, even as their attraction to one another
grows. But their attempts on his life draws the attention of the city
that would die for him, and suddenly their escalating rivalry might cost
them not just their love for each other, but both their lives.
This fast and exciting tale of female Polish legendary monsters gripped me from the first page and didn't let me go until the last. Smart prose and an icy swift plot keeps readers turning pages, as does the romance blooming between the fiery and shadowy protagonists. My only problem with this tale was the crappy ending, which was neither HEA nor HFN, and left me unsatisfied as a reader. For that reason I'd give this book a B, and only recommend it to YA lesbian romance readers who don't mind ambiguous endings.
No comments:
Post a Comment