Links, Things + More Books for Cheap
- First of all, watch this important video of Justin Timberlake singing Friends in Low Places with Garth Brooks. I Love how they're both freaking out about singing with each other. And Garth's "outfit."
- If you're obsessed with Orphan Black like I am, you'll watch to check out this preview of the next season over on EW.
- I hope someone uses this NPR piece on "speed dating" in the 19th century as inspiration for an awesome historical romance novel.
- ComicsAlliance took a moment to celebrate Emanuala Lapucchino's Magic Mike-inspired Justice League of America cover. It's pretty incredible for a number of reasons.
Gift Guide: Fantastic DVD Box Sets
As promised last week, I have another gift guide for you!
Maybe I'm old school, but I love DVDs (despite that I effectively burned up my last Roku player). I adore the bonus features and the swag and all that. Plus, some have some pretty rad packaging to boot.
Furthermore, a gift of a DVD box set is perfect for your introvert family members and friends, who'd much rather hole up with their television than ski or whatever other nonsense normal people do in the winter. (Winter: I'm not a fan.)
Recommendation Tuesday: Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
Funny how the last thing we want the world to see is almost the first thing to show.
I could have sworn that I featured Courtney Summers' Some Girls Are on Recommendation Tuesday previously, but alas, I had not. Therefore, I'm fixing that today.
Some Girls Are is a book I read a relatively long time ago, when it came out in 2010 (there were a lot of fantastic contemporary YA novels released that year). This is a tough story, I'm warning you, but one that's extremely important.
Gift Guide: 7 Books to Give This Year
A couple years ago, I created a series of gift guides that are still pretty popular--check them out here. I thought it would be fun to add to those guides with at least one new list for this holiday season. (I will try to do another one that I have sketched out--stay tuned!)
Buying books for other people can be a bit of a challenge. I always want to be sensitive to not imposing my taste and preferences on other people--just because I like something, doesn't mean that they'll love it too. But at the same time, I love putting good books in people's hands, so I strive for recommendations that will appeal to a broader audience.
Links & Things + Books for Cheap
- I really liked this reminder from Chuck Wendig about why it's important to finish your shit.
- Are you gifting a Lisa Schroeder book this year? (And you should!) If you are, you should get in on this signed bookplate offer by Dec. 10.
- Alert! If you preorder Liza Palmer's a-freaking-mazing Girl Before a Mirror, you can get a signed copy of one of her previous books. I loved the hell out that book so, so much and can't wait to re-read it.
- It looks like The Scorpio Races movie has a decent chance of becoming an actual thing... I am both excited and nervous about this news.
- In other Maggie Stiefvater news, she now has a Society 6 shop featuring her artwork. I'd like one of everything, please. (Or at least this, this and this.)
- My friend Kinoko is an incredible graphic novelist. She recently loaded up her Etsy shop with some goodies--including her graphic novels and these adorable bookmarks.
- I thought this was interesting: Vulture takes a look at all the female-centric television happening right now.
- The Guardian acknowledges what we already knew: Mindy Lahiri is the best TV character of the year.
Recommendation Roundup: November 2014
My reading habits have been all over the place lately.
For a few days, I binged on all the comics I could find. Then, I blew through Amy Poehler's book. And, it took me most of the month to listen to the final audiobook in Alexandra Bracken's Darkest Minds trilogy (I'll write more about that series later). I've continued to read the Sirantha Jax series slowly, and am kind of bummed that I'm approaching the end. Probably my two favorite reads this month were both graphic stories: Ms. Marvel and Seconds (thanks to my friend Kinoko for the recommendation). And now I'm kind of in a reading funk--not much is working for me.
In other news, Sandra's been blowing through review books, so her recommendations are filled with newer titles, if you're looking for something fresh.
As always, click through on the book cover image for more info!
Sarah Recommends
3 Quickie Contemporary Romance Reviews
If you're having a rough week, it's probably not a good idea to read a novel set in hell--literally. A guaranteed happy ending is more the ticket in these situations.
I recently picked up an assortment of contemporary romances, and have a few thoughts I'd like to share. Each of these novels belongs to a series of interconnected novels, but can be read as standalone stories.
Recommendation Tuesday: Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson's comic about teen superhero Kamala Khan, came highly recommended by many, many people. I usually don't care for the big comic publishers (Marvel, DC), largely because they're too slick for me, but the glowing recommendations from friends, plus the ridiculous controversy around meant my interest was piqued--and I pretty much loved it.
Stream-It Saturday: Now Is Good
It's always interesting to find a surprise book-to-movie adaptation. Damn studios and their name-changing ways. I added British flick Now Is Good to my Netflix queue after watching How I Live Now, because I was looking for more YA-ish movies from the UK. I thought that film took some risks you would be unlikely to see in American films.
When I finally got around to streaming Now Is Good, the story and characters' names seemed immediately familiar. A quick Google told me that I wasn't nuts, that Now Is Good is an adaptation of a book I'd forgotten I'd read, Before I Die by Jenny Downham. (I didn't forget I'd read it because it wasn't good, because it was. Rather, it was a long time ago.)
Storify: Mockingjay Disappointment
Guys, I wasn't happy with Mockingjay, Part 1. As someone who's enjoyed both movies--especially Catching Fire--and the The Hunger Games books quite a lot, I have some gripes.
So, as any reasonable person would do, I took to Twitter to air my grievances. It's Storyfied below.
(Note: Minor spoilers ahead.)
Recommendation Tuesday: Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
Today's recommendation comes from Sandra, who loved Natalie C. Parker's much-buzzed debut, Beware the Wild.
Beware the swampy places, child,
Beware the dark and wild,
Many a soul has wandered there,
And many a soul has died.
Beware the Wild, southern gothic at its best, makes Natalie C. Parker’s debut novel a standout novel. Even better it satisfies a love of the creepy embedded into a story of love, family and friendship in the small town of Sticks, Louisiana where life moves placidly, slowly and uneventfully.
Or, so it seems to its residents who literally suffer from collective memory loss.
Amy Poehler's Yes Please is Pretty Fantastic, Y'all
I have a weird relationship with celebrity-penned books. I loved Mindy Kaling's book and cannot wait for her follow-up, out next year. I really loved Esther Williams' memoir, Million Dollar Mermaid. But, I haven't been a fan of many others. (Including the one written by the female comedian that everyone but me adores.)
However, I do love Amy Poehler.
I can tell you my very clear memory of first being exposed to her: It was the late-1990s and I was still able to stay up and watch late night television and she played Andy Richter's Conan-obsessed little sister and it was bonkers. I'm certain I'd never seen anyone quite like her before. When she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, I even managed to stay up and watch her quite a bit.
What I'm Watching: Fall 2014
Am I the only person who's pretty disappointed with the new television this year? Aside from a couple notable exceptions, I haven't been excited about much of the new stuff on the tube. (Ugh, I just realized that loads of people these days probably don't even know why it's called "the tube.")
Now that we're fully into the fall television season, I thought I'd continue my tradition of sharing what I'm watching--and a few I'm not.
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater Tarot Tour & Giveaway: The Strength Card
You know how much I adore Maggie Stiefvater's novels, especially her current series, The Raven Cycle, which is like nothing else I've read.
Gansey thought of how strange it was to know these two young men so well and yet to not know them at all. Both so much more difficult and so much better than when he’d first met them. Was that what life did to them all? Chiselled them into harder, truer versions of themselves?
The third and most recent installment, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, published last month and left me impatiently tapping my fingers for the final installment of the series. We've talked a lot about this series on CEFS, and everything we've said before holds true for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. There's magic infused in this series, but the real magic in found in the complex dynamics of Blue and the Aglionby boys, Ronan, Adam, Noah and, of course, Gansey.
Recommendation Roundup: Oct. 2014
We're back with our monthly roundup of recommended reads!
My picks this month really demonstrate my weird, er, eclectic taste, I think. I'm recovering from a killer month, schedule-wise, so I'm hoping to get in some more writing about some of these books, because I read some interesting ones in October.
In Which I Bake November Cakes
It's a known fact that Maggie Stiefvater is cool as hell and that her books are pretty damn outstanding. It's hard to pick a favorite--and I won't--but there's a special place in my heart for her lone standalone novel, The Scorpio Races, which has a unique connection to the month of November,
It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.
In addition to the month of November being when the novel's titular races take place, there's a special cake Finn and Puck eat in the novel, November Cakes.
Finn finds my left hand, opens my fingers, and puts a November cake in my palm. It oozes honey and butter, rivulets of the creamy frosting joining the honey in the pit of my hand. It begs to be licked. Someone nearby screams like a water horse. My heart goes like a rabbit’s.
Maggie created a recipe for this fictional cake (though, read through to the end and you'll find that it's not so fiction for me), and the first of November seemed like the perfect time to bake them. I generally followed her recipe, though I bake like a champ, so I made some adaptations on the fly to suit my tastes.
Recommendation Tuesday: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
It's not often I find a work on literary fiction that has a story as compelling as its prose--hence, I don't recommend it very often. Sparkling, thoughtful writing is wonderful, but it feels awfully vapid when the story falters. Or it's filled with dull Middle Aged Man Angst.
Discovering Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You was an unexpected surprise, as result. While imperfect (as all novels are), it hits so many notes that make worth checking out, even if you normally avoid literary fiction. It's a historical novel, though the 1970s time period is one of the book's less-developed aspects, but more than anything it's a story of family and marriage.
Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley
When listening to the audiobook of Joy Hensley's debut YA novel, I kept recalling a huge news story from my youth: Shannon Faulkner's two year-long fight to be granted admission to The Citadel, South Carolina's public military college. When the court finally forced the college to allow her admission to the Corps of Cadets, she lasted only a week, having spent much of her time in the school's infirmary.
Years later, Faulkner revealed that she was subject to intense abuse, and feared for not only her own life but the lives of her family members, thanks to death threats she received while at the school.
It was a gut-wrenching thing to watch on the news when I was a teenager. I'd been rooting for Faulkner to succeed, to win for every girl who wanted to smash any number of boys-only clubs (institutional or social) that were inaccessible to us girls.
Recommendation Roundup: September 2014
Read any good books lately? We've got a few recommendations for you, if you're in need. (And who isn't, if we're going to be honest.)
My best read of this past month was hands-down RIck Yancey's The Infinite Sea. Man oh man, was that a killer sequel. It's been interesting reading the reviews of it, because it's a slow-paced novel that's not working for everyone. Laura, lucky girl that she is, has already read the next installment in The Raven Cycle and loved, loved, loved it. I think it's up next for me. And, Sandra recovered from her anger about the second book in Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers series enough to read the final novel and grudgingly admits that it was pretty good.