Posts in the Books category.
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January 7
Book: Praiseworthy
Miles Franklin-winning Wiradjuri author Tara June Winch says it’s a book you feel “in all your nerve endings and your blood and your soul when reading it … It’s staggering in its scope and its themes.” [more inside]
Book: Absolution
Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy. [more inside]
January 6
Book: James (by Percival Everett) - audiobook
Remember Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn", the tale of a raft trip down the Mississippi a few years before the Civil War? This is that yarn, told from the point of view of Jim, the Black slave who befriends Huck and goes on the raft adventure with him. [more inside]
January 1
Book: The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction and is described as the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. A major theme of the novel is the effect of sex and gender on culture and society, explored in particular through the relationship between Ai and Estraven, a Gethenian politician who trusts and helps Ai. When the book was first published, the gender theme touched off a feminist debate over the depiction of the ambisexual Gethenians. The novel also explores the interaction between the unfolding loyalties of its two main characters, the loneliness and rootlessness of Ai, and the contrast between the religions of Gethen's two major nations. -
December 31, 2024
Book: Metal from Heaven
A bloody lesbian revenge tale and political fantasy set in a glittering world transformed by industrial change and simmering class warfare. [more inside]
Book: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
This historical horror novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Robbie who is sent to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys (a reformatory school) in Florida in 1950. It's about racial injustice, systemic abuse, and...the supernatural. [more inside]
December 29, 2024
Book: The Black Guy Dies First
A definitive and surprising exploration of the history of Black horror films, after the rising success of Get Out, Candyman, and Lovecraft Country from creators behind the acclaimed documentary, Horror Noire. [more inside]
December 28, 2024
Book: The Apparition Phase
From the Amazon description: Twins Tim and Abi have always been different from their peers, spending their evenings in the attic of their parents' suburban house, poring over reports of the unexplained. Obsessed with photographs of ghostly apparitions, they decide to fake their own, and use it to frighten a girl at school.
But what was only supposed to be a harmless prank sets in motion a deadly and terrifying chain of events that neither of them could have predicted...
December 21, 2024
Book: The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
Tough, hard-boiled, and brilliantly suspenseful, The Last Good Kiss is an unforgettable detective story starring C. W. Sughrue, a Montana investigator who kills time by working at a topless bar. Hired to track down a derelict author, he ends up on the trail of a girl missing in Haight-Ashbury for a decade. The tense hunt becomes obsessive as Sughrue takes a haunting journey through the underbelly of America's sleaziest nightmares. (blurb stolen from Amazon) [more inside]
December 20, 2024
Book: Emily's Quest
Project Gutenberg link. Summary - Emily knows she's going to be a great writer. She also knows that she and her childhood sweetheart, Teddy Kent, will conquer the world together. But when Teddy leaves home to pursue his goal to become an artist at the School of Design in Montreal, Emily's world collapses. With Teddy gone, Emily agrees to marry a man she doesn't love ... as she tries to banish all thoughts of Teddy. In her heart, Emily must search for what being a writer really means....
December 18, 2024
Book: Emily Climbs
Available on Project Gutenberg. Summary: Emily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success. Once in town, Emily's activities set the Shrewsbury gossips buzzing. But Emily and her friends are confident -- Ilse's a born actress, Teddy's set to be a great artist, and roguish Perry has the makings of a brilliant lawyer. When Emily has her poems published and writes for the town newspaper, success seems to be on its way -- and with it the first whispers of romance. Then Emily is offered a fabulous opportunity, and she must decide if she wants to change her life forever.
December 16, 2024
Book: Emily of New Moon
Available on Project Gutenberg.
Summary: “Emily Starr never knew what it was to be lonely—until her beloved father died. Now Emily’s an orphan, and her mother’s snobbish relatives are taking her to live with them at New Moon Farm. She’s sure she won’t be happy. Emily deals with stiff, stern Aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by holding her head high and using her quick wit. Things begin to change when she makes friends: with Teddy, who does marvelous drawings; with Perry, who’s sailed all over the world with his father yet has never been to school; and above all, with Ilse, a tomboy with a blazing temper. Amazingly, Emily finds New Moon beautiful and fascinating. With new friends and adventures, Emily might someday think of herself as Emily of New Moon.”
December 9, 2024
Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
The apocalypse will be televised!
You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what. [more inside]
November 2, 2024
Book: The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
From SLJ: Hand this fantasy to readers who want a fun read with villains as the stars. [more inside]
October 31, 2024
Book: The King In Yellow
Chambers' influential, haunting stories of the play that seems to break down reality for those who read it. [more inside]
October 28, 2024
Book: A City On Mars
Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it? Critically acclaimed, bestselling authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered [more inside]
October 23, 2024
Book: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
A solitary unicorn wonders what happened to the others of her kind. She goes to search for them, and finds herself travelling through a world that has changed beyond her recognition, full of dangers and unexpected companions. [more inside]
October 16, 2024
Book: Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film
From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented―notably the slasher movie's "final girls"―as they endure fear and degradation before rising to save themselves. The lesson was not lost on the mainstream industry, which was soon turning out the formula in well-made thrillers. -- publisher
October 15, 2024
Book: Refugee by Alan Gratz
From Kirkus: Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14) [more inside]
October 4, 2024
Book: The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates structures this set of essays as letters to his students on the purpose of writing, and grappling with questions on how reporting and narratives are structured, define and distort reality.
Coates' bibliography for the Israel/Palestine essay. [more inside]
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