Welcome to February and Valentine's Day, which is on the horizon. This is a very lean February for us for several reasons, so I probably won't get any vegan chocolate or books that I'm dying to read (like Kristin Hannah's latest tome, called "The Women" about military nurses serving during the Vietnam war in the 70s), but I'm going to be surrounded by those I love and those who love me, so that should be enough, I suppose. At any rate, I'm delving deep into my TBR right now, and I have some great tidbits and good reviews to share with you all. Keep warm and dry, folks!
Indeed, I also appreciate the heroes coming out of this age of book bans and ridiculous insinuations about books "turning" children into someone on the LGBTQ spectrum, which is nonsense (as Lady Gaga once said, you are "born that way," it's not something that happens by being exposed to external ideas).
Quote from The
Clandestine Bookshelf of Houston, Texas
"There
are some heroes coming out of the Age of Censorship (TM) we are
living through. And they are mostly librarians, students, and
city-level officials challenging, resisting, and in this case,
rebelling as they can. I am not sure that a movie starring a renegade
librarian who provides students with banned books and having those
students meet in secret to read them
is gold, but I can’t help imagining a Dead
Poets-like
movie that is about finding space for truth and self-expression being
something that would work. No suicide please. Let’s end with
state-level legislation and a rousing music cue. May their efforts
not need to be covert for long."
This is a movie that is based on a woman-authored SF novel that I've been meaning to read, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the powers that be in Hollywood do with it.
Movies:
The Memory Police
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower
Moon, The Unknown Country) will
star in The Memory Police
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQSMwr4I6a9iKk0iEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nDXsP2poMLg-gVdw,
based on the science fiction novel by Yoko Ogawa, according to the
Hollywood Reporter. With a script by Charlie Kaufman (Being John
Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the film will be
directed by Reed Morano, who helmed episodes of The Handmaid's Tale
as well as the indie film I Think We're Alone Now.
Morano and Margot Hand of Picture Films
will produce. Martin Scorsese is
executive producing alongside Ogawa,
whose novel was originally released
in 1994, with an English translation
published in 2019. The novel was a
finalist for the National Book Award,
International Booker Price, and
World Fantasy Award.
This is a great quote that accurately describes the important role that indie booksellers play in people's lives, especially in relation to selling challenging books or banned books.
Quotation
of the Day
"I've visited small independent
bookstores across the country and have
never lost the feeling of immersion and
intoxication. The smell of
bookstores, the sheathy sound of books
pulled from shelves, lifted from
book piles. The whispery customer
discussions of good books in aisles.
The bookstore seller's excitement in
sharing their selections. I've
walked down a thousand aisles of
bookstore shelves and read a thousand
bookseller's recommendations....
"There is such wonder in
independent bookstores. Every day booksellers
bravely recommend books that challenge
and stir-up readers. They read
and sell books that expand our
imaginations, touch our aggrieved souls,
and ignite our intellect. They invite
readers to experience the
diversity of our rich world. Read this,
they say, and tell me what you
think. For years and years and years
they have shown me that I matter as
a reader. I have known independent
booksellers to sell difficult and
challenging books even when they are
threatened. Booksellers are
courageous in their desire to share
knowledge and ideas. Booksellers
matter." --Debra Magpie Earling, author of 2024
Pacific Northwest Booksellers
Association Book Award winner The Lost
Journals of Sacajewea (Milkweed
Editions), in an essay for NW Book
Lovers
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQSNwugI6a9ickwnEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nDX8OgpoMLg-gVd
This is such an awesome idea, to get banned books back into the hands of kids and teens in Florida public schools. Freedom of the press and of thought can't be killed!
Cool
Idea of the Day: Banned Books Back!
"How many banned books can a room
full of dedicated volunteers pack in an hour? Yesterday we found
out!" Firestorm Books
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQSNwugI6a9ickwiGQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nDX8OgpoMLg-gVdw,
Asheville, N.C. noted in a Facebook post, adding: "At our first
Banned Books Back! packaging party, community members turned out in
droves to sort through dozens of cartons of books removed from Duval
County Public Schools in Florida. Together we prepped 642 chapter
books and 936 picture books to return to young readers."
This looks like a hilarious series based on a book that spawned a bidding war before it was even published for public consumption!
TV:
Margo's Got Money Troubles
Margo's Got Money Troubles
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQSBk-wI6a9hJxAjHA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nDU5KkpoMLg-gVdw, "a hot series package... set in
the world of OnlyFans with a wrestling twist," has landed at Apple TV+
with a straight-to-series order,
Deadline reported. Elle Fanning and
Nicole Kidman will star and
executive produce the eight-part
series, alongside David E. Kelley and
Dakota Fanning with A24 as the studio.
Apple TV+ outbid a number of other
companies, including Netflix, for the
rights to the series, which is based on
Rufi Thorpe's upcoming book, set
to be published by William Morrow on
June 11, Deadline noted. Kelley
will serve as showrunner.
I read and loved The Prestige, though it was a gothic horror novel with a supernatural twist, which is not my usual reading fare. But then the awful movie came out, and it extinguished my love of the mystery and fascination of the story Priest told. Though I adore Hugh Jackman, I loathe Christian Bale. At any rate, I am sorry to hear that Priest has passed. RIP.
Obituary
Note: Christopher Priest
British novelist Christopher Priest
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQSBxb8I6a9hJhhwTA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nDU8T3poMLg-gVdw,
who was best known for The Prestige and "became eminent
more than once over the nearly 60 years of his active working life,"
died February 2, the Guardian reported. He was 80.
In 1983, he was included in the Granta
Best of Young British Novelists,
a list that included many
writers--Martin Amis, William Boyd, Kazuo
Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie,
Graham Swift, A.N. Wilson among
them--significantly younger than
Priest, whose career had begun almost
two decades earlier, with at least 15
books and 50 stories in print by
the early '80s.
The Prestige (1995), about two feuding
19th-century magicians, won both
the James Tait Black Memorial prize and
a World Fantasy award. A film
adaptation by Christopher Nolan (2006)
starred Hugh Jackman and
Christian Bale.
"The New Worlds/New Wave vision of
a world that had lost all sense of
itself, with no stories to show a way
out, was inspiring: but from the
beginning Priest recognized the central
influence and mentoring genius
of J.G. Ballard, who made hypnotic
stories out of the seemingly
unstoryable, for his uncanny intuition
that past, present and future
were an 'inner space' we must explore
and live with," the Guardian
wrote. "Though his works are
formally more ingenious, everything Priest
wrote acknowledges his mentor's
foreknowledge that we now live in that
inner space, where the lighting is
treacherous."
Tomasz Hoskins, his editor at
Bloomsbury, added: "His was a unique mind,
and his legacy is a generation of
intelligent science fiction writers
inspired by his work and that of his
contemporaries."
Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer is an utterly delightful YA fantasy that reads like a cross between Kim Possible and Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell books. There's also some of Amy Sherman Paladino's rapid-fire dialog herein that will leave you laughing until you're breathless. I had no idea, BTW, that you could publish a book in installments on TikTok, so now I'm jealous of all those folks who were able to read this delightful book before me.
Here's the blurb:
The prose of HNM's world is clean and tight and full of snarky humor. The plot moves like a bullet train with no stops, and I found myself reading this book in a day because I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end, and now I find myself hoping for a sequel. Evie's exploits and her love of her evil boss reminded me of Grue and the female secret agent from the Despicable Me movies. The ending was satisfying in a "happy for now" manner, and the quest for rescuing the Villain is now officially on! I'd give this marvelous book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes oddball romance stories.
The Girl in the Green Silk Gown by Seanan McGuire is the second book in her Ghost Roads series, following the fascinating Sparrow Hill Road, which I read last month. These books are a combination of ghost stories (and urban legends) with fantasy romance with a bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. I'm a fan of McGuire's October Daye series of fantasy books, so I was confident in picking up a copy of this novel, because I knew McGuire knows her way around a paranormal urban fantasy environment. Here's the blurb: The second book in the Ghost Roads series
returns to the highways of America, where hitchhiking ghost Rose
Marshall continues her battle with her killer--the immortal Bobby Cross.
Once and twice and thrice around,
Put your heart into the ground.
Four and five and six tears shed,
Give your love unto the dead.
Seven shadows on the wall,
Eight have come to watch your fall:
One’s for the gargoyle, one’s for the grave,
And the last is for the one you’ll never save.
For Rose Marshall, death has long since become the only life she really knows. She’s been sweet sixteen for more than sixty years, hitchhiking her way along the highways and byways of America, sometimes seen as an avenging angel, sometimes seen as a killer in her own right, but always Rose, the Phantom Prom Date, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown.
The man who killed her is still out there, thanks to a crossroads bargain that won’t let him die, and he’s looking for the one who got away. When Bobby Cross comes back into the picture, there’s going to be hell to pay—possibly literally.
Rose has worked for decades to make a place for herself in the twilight. Can she defend it, when Bobby Cross comes to take her down? Can she find a way to navigate the worlds of the living and the dead, and make it home before her hitchhiker’s luck runs out?
There’s only one way to know for sure.
Once and twice and thrice around,
Put your heart into the ground.
Four and five and six tears shed,
Give your love unto the dead.
Seven shadows on the wall,
Eight have come to watch your fall:
One’s for the gargoyle, one’s for the grave,
And the last is for the one you’ll never save.
For Rose Marshall, death has long since become the only life she really knows. She’s been sweet sixteen for more than sixty years, hitchhiking her way along the highways and byways of America, sometimes seen as an avenging angel, sometimes seen as a killer in her own right, but always Rose, the Phantom Prom Date, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown.
The man who killed her is still out there, thanks to a crossroads bargain that won’t let him die, and he’s looking for the one who got away. When Bobby Cross comes back into the picture, there’s going to be hell to pay—possibly literally.
Rose has worked for decades to make a place for herself in the twilight. Can she defend it, when Bobby Cross comes to take her down? Can she find a way to navigate the worlds of the living and the dead, and make it home before her hitchhiker’s luck runs out?
There’s only one way to know for sure.
So though it was a well-written book about the 'real' story behind urban legends like the hitchhiker girl who disappears at dawn, but appeared perfectly real when she was picked up and taken to a truck stop for burgers, I found myself a bit bored at the redundancy in this book, especially about the rules surrounding the dead who walk the ghost roads, and the mythological gods/goddesses who lurk behind the road witches and various ghosts, waiting for them to beg favors and offer various things in trade for those favors. McGuire repeated a lot of the lore over and over, until I found myself screaming "I know! You've already told us those things in previous chapters!" Still, the plot was solid and moved along at a clip, and the prose was sterling and adaptable. I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone who read the first book in the series and has enough patience to see their way through the redundancies of the sophomore novel.
Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross was a YA fantasy/folklore/romance novel with beautiful characters that reminded me of Night Circus and Witcher, as well as Caraval by Stephanie Garber and Sarah Maas's fae romance series. Here's the blurb:
Be warned, there's a lot of reveals that happen in the last 1/3rd of the book, so if you're not a fan of surprise parenting reveals or the like, you might have to sit this one out. That said, the liquid prose that flowed like melted gold through the elegant plot left a sizeable impression on me as a reader, which is unusual...I have read Ross's latest bestsellers, Divine Rivals and the sequel, so I thought I had her style down pat. Then she goes and surprises me with this fantasy full of dreams and gods and good and evil, but you don't know which is which until you near the finale of the book. I'd give this book an A-, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy and romance that are unique and somewhat bizarre.
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