Archive for April, 2009
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
This Earth of Mankind (Buru Quartet, book 1), by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who died in 2006, was an Indonesian author and political prisoner. He protested first against the treatment of the native Indonesians by their Dutch colonizers, then the World War II occupation of Indonesia by the Japanese, and then against the authoritarian regimes that replaced them. His political beliefs — which tended towards [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in book reviews,historical fiction by Stephanie
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Dead Man Walking (Dante Valentine, book 2), by Lilith Saintcrow
Apparently, yes, it’s her real name. It’s almost as if her parents wanted her to write Gothy urban fantasy. (I wish my parents had wanted me to write Gothy urban fantasy.) She has a pretty impressive website and a large back catalog, including a novel (related to this one) serialized on her website. (That novel [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,fantasy by Stephanie
Friday, April 24th, 2009
The Amaranth Enchantment, by Julie Berry
Like so many authors, Julie Berry was a reader as a child, but she grew up on a farm, so there were also many things to do — play with the pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, cats, and dogs; catch minnows, crawdads (crayfish for the northerners), frogs, and turtles; and probably muck out stables and other [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,children's lit,fantasy by Stephanie
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
The Skylark, by Peter Straub
Peter Straub is a Wisconsinite; he was born and raised in Milwaukee and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his undergraduate education. He has a master’s degree from Columbia University, and at least started a Ph.D. in Dublin. He’s apparently a famous writer of poetry and horror novels; the latter have won him several Bram [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in book reviews,fantasy,horror by Stephanie
Monday, April 20th, 2009
Virtually His, by Gennita Low
Gennita Low is unusual among authors in that not only does she have a day job — she runs her own roofing company — but it’s sort of a working-class day job, and she celebrates it. Her blog is at rooferauthor.blogspot.com, and she doesn’t pretend she’s just doing it until she can write full-time, as [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,romance novels,science fiction,suspense/thriller by Stephanie
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Bloodhound (Beka Cooper, book 2), by Tamora Pierce
I started reading Tamora Pierce’s books in sixth grade; apparently that was long enough ago that she’d only published five books. Now she’s up over twenty-five and of course I’ve read ‘em all. She has two major series, the one set in Tortall that started with the Alanna (Song of the Lioness) books (and continued [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in book reviews,children's lit,fantasy by Stephanie
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, edited by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah was born in Ghana, and emigrated with her family at the age of six, in the mid-1970s. Her full-length memoir, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey through Depression, was published in 1998 and immediately hailed as groundbreaking, being that it was the first work published by an African-American person dealing [...]
No Comments » - Posted in bio/autobio,book reviews,contemporary by Stephanie
Monday, April 13th, 2009
M is for Magic, by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is everyone’s darling right now. Not only have his last two movies (Coraline and Stardust) done fairly well, but he won the Newbery Award just recently for The Graveyard Book, a novel about a toddler who runs into a graveyard to escape being murdered with the rest of his family, and is raised [...]
No Comments » - Posted in book reviews,children's lit,fantasy,horror,science fiction by Stephanie
Friday, April 10th, 2009
Collected Stories, by Lewis Shiner
Ahh, Lewis Shiner. The man who convinced me that I never want to move to Durham, NC (the same way that Slumdog Millionaire made me not want to visit India). Born in Eugene, OR in 1950, he moved around a lot as a kid, and read science fiction and adventure novels. One of Bob Dylan’s [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in alternate history,book reviews,contemporary,fantasy,historical fiction,horror,science fiction,suspense/thriller by Stephanie
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Watchtower (Chronicles of Tornor, book 1), by Elizabeth A. Lynn
Elizabeth A. Lynn is apparently openly lesbian and born in 1946. This book won the World Fantasy Award in 1980, originally published the year before, and the author has a sixth-degree black belt in aikido. She lives in San Francisco, and either teaches or taught martial arts. That’s about all the information that I can [...]