Friday, October 19, 2012

More

More AudioBooks

Winter of the World by Ken Follett. 25 CDs at 31.75 hours.  Interview with Follett from BookTV.

Hexed by Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, Jeanne C. Stein.  "Four all new stories of magic and mayhem" by four authors with oddly spelled first names.

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin. 12 CDs at 14.5 hours.  Old bachelor helps out pregnant teen girls.

Into the Woods by Kim Harrison.  16 CDs at 20 hours.  Scary stories.

Bailout: an inside account of how Washington abandoned Main Street while rescuing Wall Street by Neil Barofsky. 8 CDs at 9.5 hours.  More scary stories.

More Books

Double Vision by F.T. Bradley.  Troublemaker kid Linc is a ringer for a kid super agent.  Linc gets hired.  Book bio says Bradley is from the Netherlands.  That means she wears wooden shoes, hates Germans, and panics when hearing water leaks.

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell.  Bones.  Dead people.  Bad guys.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

3 Print 3 Plastic

Print

Into the Woods by Kim Harrison.  Short story collection of fantasy tales set in the woods.  Harrison has long red hair. 

The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Apocalyptic zombies.  Cronin taught at Rice.  That means he is a nerd.  We were going to go by Rice during our family trip to Houston but since my father, the only Rice alumnus in the group, was not there we skipped it.  I was happy to go and visit the cheap bar there

Sleep No More by Iris Johansen.  Series character Eve Duncan experiences thrills and chills.  Johansen was born in 1938.  Her son has an Edgar nomination.  The Edgar Award is a big deal.

Plastic

Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell. 10 CDs at 13 hours.  Scarpetta researches missing paleontologist.

Tales From the Fire Zone by Jonathan Maberry. 3 CDs at 3 hours.  Zombie tales from zombie man.

Fatal Dive: solving the World War II mystery of the USS Grunion by Peter F. Stevens.  6 CDs at 7 hours.  Submarine Grunion sunk in 1942 with 70 crew aboard.  Found in 2006.  What caused the sinking?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Romans and a Comic with Mixed Reviews

NonFiction

The Guy Under the Sheets: the unauthorized biography by Chris Elliott.  Since no one else was writing an unauthorized biography of Chris Elliott he did so himself.  Mixed reviews but second one is entertaining.

Booklist's David Pitt wrote: This hugely entertaining pack of lies reads like a Woody Allen essay from the New Yorker, but, buried among the silliness, there is a nugget or two of legitimate autobiography. Wildly weird and hugely entertaining.

Library Journal's Barry X. Miller wrote: a clunker...readers...will come away disappointed...ridiculous parody, jokes that go over like a lead balloon, and hyperbole of migrain-inducing dimensions. There is no narrative through-line, and everything, including all semblance of a coherent story or point of interest, is sacrificed on the altar of cheap laughs.  VERDICT: Not funny! Recommended only for the hardest of the hardcore Chris Elliott fanboys.

Fiction

Centurion by Simon Scarrow.  Adventure novel of the Roman Legions.  A fun series featuring centurions Macro and Cato.  Similar read to Bernard Cornwell.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Bloodline Delusion From The Shoe Hive

NonFiction

The Shoe: best foot forward by Tamsin Blanchard.  Because women like shoes.  Hopefully they will like this book even though the plastic cover has a bunch of dang air bubbles in it.

A Family's Guide to Tourette Syndrome edited by John T. Walkup, MD, et al.  This has air bubbles all over it, too.

Comic Book Novel

The Hive by Charles Burns. Not covered in air bubbles.  Not to be confused with The Hives.


Large Print

Dick Francis's Bloodline by Felix Francis.  Horses.  Murder.  Thrills

Delusion in Death by J.D. Robb.  Does Nora Roberts use a ghost writer or does she write really fast?  I watched part of an interview with Ken Follett and he works six days a week from about 7 AM to 4 PM.  Sometimes he works seven days a week.  You can watch the interview here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/308209-1.

DVD

30 Rock: season 6 starring Alec Baldwin.  "She's like a little human tumbler of scotch."  You can check out the DVD (for free) to watch the full episode.  Or, pay two bucks for every 22 minutes of show.