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Quick books.
17/9/11 11:36I am doing a lot -- a LOT -- of committee reading.
Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a lot of fun for someone who once went to a great deal of trouble to track down all eighteen volumes of a certain angel-and-demon-fall-in-love manga. I didn't mind the cracktastic theology in that one, but I'm glad that Smoke and Bone finds a way to effectively sidestep those questions. I'm pretty disillusioned with Extruded Paranormal Product these days, but Taylor is a genuinely great writer and finds a way to effectively balance the EPICness with witty banter -- in that respect, and the Doomed Angsty Love respect, I think Buffy fans should give it a try.
Martha Brooks is one of my favorite writers, someone who can infuse very quiet situations with a humanity and tenderness that are more compelling than a plot with a lot of shiny moving parts. The Queen of Hearts is her newest one, set at a TB sanatorium in southern Manitoba during World War II, and if any writer could make it interesting to hang out at a TB sanatorium on the Canadian prairies, it's Martha Brooks. It is a very Canadian book. I am pondering the possibilities of vegetarian tourtiere (it's a traditional French-Canadian mincemeat pie. Needless to say it has been a while.) I think this will become one of my favorite books about friendship; the characters are so human, and so flawed, and the book treats their relationship as both hard and genuinely important.
Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a lot of fun for someone who once went to a great deal of trouble to track down all eighteen volumes of a certain angel-and-demon-fall-in-love manga. I didn't mind the cracktastic theology in that one, but I'm glad that Smoke and Bone finds a way to effectively sidestep those questions. I'm pretty disillusioned with Extruded Paranormal Product these days, but Taylor is a genuinely great writer and finds a way to effectively balance the EPICness with witty banter -- in that respect, and the Doomed Angsty Love respect, I think Buffy fans should give it a try.
Martha Brooks is one of my favorite writers, someone who can infuse very quiet situations with a humanity and tenderness that are more compelling than a plot with a lot of shiny moving parts. The Queen of Hearts is her newest one, set at a TB sanatorium in southern Manitoba during World War II, and if any writer could make it interesting to hang out at a TB sanatorium on the Canadian prairies, it's Martha Brooks. It is a very Canadian book. I am pondering the possibilities of vegetarian tourtiere (it's a traditional French-Canadian mincemeat pie. Needless to say it has been a while.) I think this will become one of my favorite books about friendship; the characters are so human, and so flawed, and the book treats their relationship as both hard and genuinely important.
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