By Johanna Lindsey
Read: Feb 2010
Rating: Convoluted
There’s a LOT of fun to poke at this thing. Before I have fun, let me say that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t really good, either.
BOOK-IN-A-MINUTE, Git-style
(Yes, that means spoiler)
Roseleen: I am a history professor with a penchant for old weapons. Look at this fabulous old sword my brother [...]

By Barbara G. Walker
Not Read: Feb 2010
Rating: *zones out*
I’m trying to be good, really I am. But 50 pages out of 170 isn’t such a bad run…
The book is awkward and boring and it reads like what it is–a work of fiction by a feminist scholar that has been described (by The Northwest Gay and [...]

By Susanna Clarke
Read: December 2009
Rating: Engrossing
For the record, I am including this in the 2009 50Book list, because I read the vast majority of it during December. So there.
Mein gott, this has been sitting on my shelf since FOREVER. And it is one daunting brick of a book, too. Over 1000 pages in the paperback. [...]

By Commander Pants
Read: October 2009
Rating: Fun
What could be more appropriate than to talk about god and mental illness? Even better, how about people who aren’t as ill as they seem?
Commander Pants (yes, that’s his nom de plume) has written a novel that cleverly forces one to question human nature while making us laugh. Reminiscent of [...]

By Sharon Shinn
Read : June 2009
Rating: Ho hum?
Well, it wasn’t terrible. There were some good points, but it certainly wasn’t Shinn’s best. (It’s feeling a little redundant saying that…)
Essentially, it’s a story of imperialism, told for a young adult audience with a penchant for romance. Averie’s father is a general in what is a (thinly [...]

Edited by Dana Stabenow
Read: Sept/Oct 2008 (review finalized May 2009)
Rating: Abysmal
It was a noble goal. Dana Stabenow writes sci fi/fantasy, and when someone suggested she try her hand at a mystery competition she laughed. But she said she’d try and it turned into a story. It was too long for the competition and she refused [...]

by Fred Gallagher
Read: Continuously, reread May 2009
Rating: Brills
Get sucked in: http://www.megatokyo.com/
If you’ve been reading webcomics for any period of time and haven’t come across Megatokyo you’re not surfing the right comics. Ever seen the Sad Girl In Snow trope? This is where it was born.
Megatokyo is a lot of things, on a lot [...]

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Disappointing
Gentle readers, it is a sad day for my bookshelf. I am usually very good about finishing the books I pick up, I hate stopping partway, unless they’re really trash. Even when something becomes mediocre, I see it through, if only to see how bad it gets. I got 2/3 [...]

By Philip Pullman
Read: August 2008
Rating: Intense
I totally missed the boat on this one. It’s a real shame, because I think I would have quite liked it at the time it was published, and I was just ten years old. At 22, I’m much more critical of some things, and less easy to impress in other [...]

By Naomi Novik
Read: July 2008
Rating: Intense
I got an email alert announcing the release of this book, and was able to attend Naomi Novik’s very first book signing EVARR. She was excited, we were excited, and the space at the Greenwich Village B&N was standing room only. How cool was that?!
She read an as-yet-unpublished short story [...]

By Naomi Novik
Read: June/July 2008
Rating: Fascinating
I put off reading EoI for a long while because I just wasn’t in the mood. I read the first three Temeraire books back in ‘06 and they have since been passed on to both my parents. All our paperbacks now have warped spines and white, messy edges. Signs of [...]

By Kurt Vonnegut.
Available @Amazon.com (but I’m too lazy to link right now)
Read: September 2007
Rating: PHWOAR.
See the cat, see the cradle?
Book is farking brilliant. My apologies that I’m not more coherent about it, but I thought it was brilliant.
Vonnegut is my new personal hero. In the course of Cat’s Cradle he needles modern science, scientists, and [...]

By Meg Rosoff
Read: August 2006, December 2009 (review stands)
Rating: Awesome
I loved this book. I finished it within a day because it was so good. It was recommended to me by my good friend Sreya and she was so right.
The novel is narrated by Daisy, a girl who grew up in New York under inauspicious circumstances. [...]

Since time and interest don’t allow for every book to get its own lengthy review, I’m going to do some mini-reviews. Clod save us all.
This install comes from the 2006 50 Book Challenge, which is going great guns, thanks. Books 1-20 were read during this time period. This mini review includes:

Yentl’s Revenge (Essays on Judaism [...]

By Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Read: April 2006
Rating: Headspinner
And you though 1984 was tough. V For Vendetta takes Orwell as a jumping point and sets everything on its ear. I haven’t seen the movie, but I really hope it makes more sense than this fast-paced graphic novel.
I was given this as a holiday gift. It [...]

By George Orwell
Rating: Phwoar
Read: April 2006
I read this once before, in junior year of high school. I didn’t like it so much then. But now I’m in awe, sort of like the JK Rowling phenomenon. I really like it this time. And I’m amazed by the theory and complexity. It is so COOL.
I still hate [...]

By Ray Bradbury
Rating: Hmm
Read: May 2006
In the last month I’ve upped by reading significantly. School put a severe dent in things, but I’m going to play catch up this summer. One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is actually read some of the classics. This is one of them. It’s part of the [...]

By Stephen King as Richard Berman
Rating: Swift
Read: April 2006
When looking for decent shortish novels, both my teacher and my father suggested early Stephen King novels. I was wary of it, since he doesn’t have a great contemporary reputation in my house, but I got this one at the gorgeous Jefferson Market Library and finished it [...]

By Margaret Atwood
Rating: Hmn?
Read: Dec 31st ‘05-Jan 21st ‘06

Look at how specific that timeframe is! I bought the book after years of oggling it on New Year’s Eve as something to read on the train ride home. My friends stayed for Times Square but I skipped out and got home perdy much at midnight exactly.
I [...]

By Piers Anthony
Rating: Frabjous
Read: approx. 1998 (age 12), reread August 2005.

I first read the Incarnations of Immortality when I was about 12, and I remember enough to know that I didn’t comprehend nearly as much as I will now, some 7 years later. (Yosh, has it really been that long?) I’ve reread this particular book [...]

By William Gibson
Don’t send the nanotech after me! Amazon.com
Rating: Evasive.
Read: Freshman year (00-01), reread march 05

There are two people who may be upset that I did not enjoy Idoru, but I’m afraid I have to be honest. I found Idoru to be scatter-brained and evasive. I’ve never been a fan of books that follow two [...]

By Margaret Atwood
Rating: Favorite.
Read: Junior year (02-03), reread March 05.

I love The Handmaid’s Tale. I love it so much that I finally bought a copy from the college bookstore, and I covet it like Offred coveted the small things she wished she could steal from her oppressors. I found the book by chance while wandering [...]

By Neil Gaiman
Rating: DIVINE.
Read: Xmas 04

Holy crapmonkeys, I LOVE THIS BOOK. I can’t remember who gave it to me (Sreya?) but I ADORE it. Neil Gaiman is absolutely brilliant (and sexy, too).
We begin with a framed convict on the day he is released from prison. All he wants it to go home to his wife.
Alas, [...]