Featured Posts

Amazon love us! They really love us! So, it seems someone at Amazon has finally moved their coffee cup off their "Kindle shipping map" and realised that underneath it lay the little old land of New Zealand. "Oh crap, you guys. We forgot...

Read more

The Booker goes bonkers No, it doesn't really. I was just trying to get your attention. Mean Bookie! So, the 2010 Man Booker Prize longlist of 13 titles has been announced and the ... nominees... are (dundahdahDAH!): Peter...

Read more

Book Review: Cannibal Jack by Trevor Bentley Cannibal Jack : The Life & Times of Jacky Marmon, a Pakeha-Maori by Trevor Bentley, Penguin, RRP$40, ISBN 9780143203827, Available now. Ah, Penguin. It's a rollercoaster ride with you, isn't it?...

Read more

What's BookieMonster reading? Changeless by Gail Carriger Soulless, Changeless, Blameless... Meaningless. Aha! I slay me. :twisted: Changeless and Soulless have bounced around the interwebs for a while so I thought I'd dive in and have a read - Changeless...

Read more

  • Prev
  • Next

What’s BookieMonster reading? Changeless by Gail Carriger

2

Category : Book Reviews, BookieMonster News, Featured, What's BookieMonster Reading?

Changeless coverSoulless, Changeless, Blameless… Meaningless.

Aha! I slay me. :twisted:

Changeless and Soulless have bounced around the interwebs for a while so I thought I’d dive in and have a read – Changeless was the first title to become available for me at the library so, despite it being the second in the series, I took it. I’ve been told I really should have read Soulless and I will be when it becomes available.

Anyway, actual book? A fun piece of fluffery. Frippery even. Don’t expect much (which I kind of made the mistake of doing), don’t expect writing that extends beyond exposition and you’ll be fine.

Does that make me sound like a total po-faced killjoy? Because it reads like it does.

Some of the supposed language tics annoyed the frick out of me, the plot was a little slow to begin with but improved immensely, I’m not one for cliffhanger endings, I enjoyed a lot of the humour, I engaged more with the characters as the book progressed, I’m happy to read the others (but not looking to run out and buy them), I didn’t love it like I thought I would but I’m willing to look into a bit more of the genre (steampunk. I believe).

Changeless was fun. Is what I’m trying to say.

I think I need to relax more.

The “Humans are Amazing” edition : The Humane Reader

Category : Book Trade News, Fun Stuff

Humans can be strange, mad, bad creatures but the best thing about them is they can also come up with some amazing things in the name of helping fellow humans, like this Humane Reader, from the same people who make the Humane PC.

Something about these really appeals to me. I think this is an amazing project – I love that technology can be used to reach people and that we can change our way of thinking about “obsolescence”.

SLOW THE PRESSES A WEE BIT: UNITY BOOKS and SPORT have something to mumble…

1

Category : Book Trade News, Competitions, Fun Stuff

Unity Books and SPORT are stoked to announce a short story prize with a difference: The Long And The Short Of It.

ENTRIES OPEN 1ST DAY OF SPRING (1ST OF SEPTEMBER) AND CLOSE ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Proudly supported by: Astra Print, the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, Federation Media & Ngatarawa Winery

You might ask, why?
And we might answer:

‘This competition is designed to get people excited, to encourage new fingers to bang different keys: this is for the small, the strange, the beautiful, the bountiful and above all, the best.’
—Lily Richards, Brand Manager for Unity Books Auckland

‘We want to eliminate boring “competition stories” and challenge writers to work in the territories that produce so much of the best contemporary fiction, by writers like Lydia Davis or Alice Munro.’
— Fergus Barrowman, Editor and Publisher of SPORT

//

WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE 2011 AUCKLAND WRITERS AND READERS FESTIVAL
WHERE WE CAN ALL CELEBRATE WITH A NICE GLASS OF NGATARAWA WINE…Mmmmmm.

VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO ENTER (FROM 1ST SEPTEMBER)

Unity Books<http://www.unitybooks.co.nz/>

Click the thumbnail below for the full press release!

Unity Books & VUP Press Release

Today’s wide world of books (with added commentary)

11

Category : Book Trade News

In the Telegraph, Ian McEwan says Americans are ‘profoundly bored’ by climate change.

He added, with a laugh: “Or maybe it was no good, there was always that possibility.”

Yes, Mr McEwan there is always that possibility.

Okay, so maybe I should have called this Today’s narrow world of Snark… :D

What’s BookieMonster Reading? Flim-flammery! (lots of things)

2

Category : Book Reviews, BookieMonster News, What's BookieMonster Reading?

Locas II coverLocas II : Maggie, Hopey & Ray by Jaime Hernandez

Blog reader recommendation for the win! Thanks Craig for recommending Jaime Hernandez – upon which I ran right out to the library and got this title (I’m so suggestible). I didn’t like this quite as much as Strangers in Paradise but to be fair that is more a matter of some personal taste around narrative and not a negative comment on this title.

Locas II is wild, a bit crazy, awesomely illustrated, sad and fun. I can’t comment a lot on the storyline because this is the first Jaime Hernandez I’ve read so these characters are all new to me. The story swings from female character centred to male character centred and, really, that just makes it so enjoyable to read, compared to the “action” graphic novel genre. Is that a genre? If not I just made it up – but do you know what I mean? Manly action hero stuff – a lot of which is good but a lot of which is crap.

Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise WelshTamburlaine Must Die cover

I thoroughly enjoyed my first read of Louise Welsh earlier this year, so I was keen to get this out of the library when I spotted it purely by chance! And I’m glad I did as it is definitely a worthwhile read, a short novel speculating on the last days of Christopher Marlowe (a contemporary of Shakespeare) who was stabbed and died under circumstances that were mysterious at the time and have become increasingly mysterious over the centuries.

Welsh explores this mystery and gives us an entertaining story at the same time – which seems to be Welsh’s modus operandi and the reader is all the better for it!

A great short read – perfect for a little weekend quiet time.

Three Shadows coverThree Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa

Duuhuuhuuhuude… *sobs uncontrollably*

So there’s this lovely little family with this cute little kid and then these shadows appear and then the mother freaks out and then the father freaks out and then he takes the cute little kid and flees and… and… and… *breaks down again*

*deep breath*

It’s a great looking graphic novel and the story is sweet and poignant and devastating and really, if you have kids or are just really, really attached to them then make sure you read this with a box of tissues handy.

*sniffle*

© 2009-2010 BookieMonster All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright

Better Tag Cloud