Blurb for the back cover:
“A decent graphic novel”

Jamie S. Rich, who you may remember from this drunken photo, is the author of the graphic novel series Love the Way You Love. Originally it was released in six smaller comics and later compiled in to volumes containing three parts each. Side A contains the first three while Side B, which was recently released, features the latter three. It is illustrated by Marc Ellerby, who according to his bio in the back of the book, is 24.

Love the Way You Love is the story of Tristan and his band Like A Dog. Upon returning home from a trip, he spots a girl, Isobel, at the airport who he instantly falls in love with but completely and utterly fails to strike up a conversation with. As luck would have it, she appears again that evening at the Like A Dog show with her tall, dark, hansom and all around greedy fiancé, Marcus, in tow. Naturally, the only logical thing Tristan and Isobel can do is have an affair behind the fiancé’s back. Marcus, whop is head of a record company wants to sign Like A Dog and make as much money off of them as possible. Things get worse when Tristan rejects Marcus’s record offer against his band mates wishes and they stage a mutiny

Overall this is a decent graphic novel. Originally the three volumes were pretty slim and make for a quick reading. In this collection that combines the first three volumes, it feels much more substantial. My only real problem is with the two main characters Tristan and Isobel who I find to be slightly on the annoying side of things. Tristan comes off as pretentious as he constantly rejects the opportunities presented to him to help advance his career and ignores everybody else who is effected by his decision. Isobel with her “woe is me” routine tries to play the part of the victim as she tries to figure out what to do with the two guys who care about her. Although near the end of Side A she does finally start to figure stuff out. I hope that in Side B we get to see more of her personality. As is, she is much too quiet and reserved. The rest of the cast provide the humor and help move the plot along. They are the ones who are working behind Tristan and Isobel’s back to actually make things happen. I feel that they are the ones that hold this book together.

Since this book is strongly music themed, if you are a music fan you might get a little something extra out of the recommended soundtrack the comes along with this book. Scattered throughout the story are little black boxes that will tell you watch particular song goes well with the scene. For added immersion, you could theoretically listen to those songs while reading.

Here are the books I hope to read this fall. A few of them are left over from my Summer Reading Pile that I never got around to reading. Of my Summer Reading Pile, I managed to finish nine of my original nineteen books I had planned. I did get sidetracked and read a couple books that weren’t originally in my pile. You know how that goes..

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Polly and the Pirates by Ted Naifeh
Therein Lies The Problem by Steve Dupont
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp
Edin Burgh by Alexander Chee
Sparks by Lawrence Marvit
Have You Seen The Horizon Lately? By Jamie S. Rich
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
The Half-Mammals of Dixie by George Singleton
Yes, Yes, Cherries by Mary Otis
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Sound of No Hands Clapping by Toby Young
Hero by Perry Moore
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

Blurb for the back cover:
“Starts off funny and generally holds my attention, but after a few minutes the novelty wears off”

What an odd book. John Hodgman, former literary agent, decided that is was time to write a book of his own and that book is An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by myself, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Hobo Matters, Food, Drink & Cheese (a Kind of Food), Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels, Haircuts, Utopia, What Will Happen in the Future, and Most Other Subjects or The Areas of My Expertise for short. In this book Hodgman attempts to compile everything he knows.

I’ve often overlooked this book in the bookstore, picking it up only to put it back down again. However the opportunity presented itself to enjoy this book via CD on a lengthy road trip, so I figured I would give this book a shot. The long title covers pretty much everything the book does. In fact, the long title would make a nice summary of the table of contents. Speaking of the table of contents, is it normal for an audiobook to read that to me?

The audiobook edition which is read by the author is not a straight word-for-word recording. Instead it has been adapted to fit the audio format complete with its own theme song by Jonathan Coulton. Coulton joins John Hodgman as he reads the book which can sometimes make it feel more like one of those morning radio chat programs instead of an audiobook.

In terms of the content, The Area of My Expertise has its high and low points. The chapters that cover Matters Literary and Matters Historical are a nice way to start the book off. Midway through the book, right when it hits Hobo Matters, it starts to drag on and witty banter turns to inane rambling. The problem is that Hodgman sometimes devotes too much time to subject matters that are neither interesting or funny. The same thing happens when he starts talking about the 51st state. It starts off funny and generally holds my attention, but after a few minutes the novelty wears off and I am stuck listening to the brief history of a floating state.

In the end, it was entertaining and helped get my through my long drive. When all is said and done, this probably works well as a book you pick up and casually read over a longer period of time. As an audiobook, even with the added music from Jonathan Coulton, it is just not entertaining enough to justify listening to in one sitting. To sum up: enjoy in small doses and skip the CD dedicated to reading the 700 hobo names.

it also seems that Mr. Hodgman will soon be releasing <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMore-Information-Than-You-Require%2Fdp%2F0525950346%2F&tag=theboopir-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325″>More Information Than You Require</a> on October 21st, 2008

Second Opinions:
Mostly NF
Mostly Muppet

Today is National Punctuation Day. I know. Exciting, right?

To celebrate I thought I would draw your attention to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. It’s a collection of pictures of signs and what not that improperly use quotations marks. Also, there are witty comments made by the author.

Blurb for the back cover:
“Shadow Thieves is just as epic, just as fun, and just as enjoyable to read as Starcatchers“

Since it’s National Talk Like a Pirate Day, let’s talk about a book that features pirates.

Peter and the Shadow Thieves is the second book in Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson‘s Starcatchers series that serve as unauthorized prequels to J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan. I read the first book, Peter and the Starcatchers a couple years ago and love it. Having never read the original Peter Pan but being a fan of the Disney movie, I found Barry and Pearson’s detailed explanation of how Peter Pan, Capitan Hook, and Tinkerbell came to be compelling. Even though the book was 500+ pages, I managed to finish it quicker than normal. Then again, it is a book intended for young readers but I believe that anybody who is a fan of the Peter Pan story will enjoy it.

In Shadow Thieves, Peter is living on Neverland Island along with four other boys who decided to stay with him after the events of Starcatchers. Peter spends his day taunting the recently handicapped and newly nicknamed Captain Hook who has been stranded on the island along with his pirate crew. One dark evening, a mysterious ship comes to Neverland looking for Starstuff, which the byproduct of shooting stars and gives a person great powers. Leading this treasure hunt is Lord Ombra who is part man, part shadow and has the ability to take over someone’s shadow and control that person. The only safe place to be is a place where no shadows are cast, a.k.a. in the dark, which really isn’t that safe when you think about it. Anyway, things happen, people are kidnapped and Lord Ombra and his followers set forth to London to discover the location of the Starstuff and get a hold of it by any means possible. Hearing this, Peter decides to leave Neverland for the first time and fly to London to warn Molly and her family of the dangers that are headed her way.

The plot would make more sense if you have read Starcatchers. There is a lot of mythology that gets set up and it is assumed the reader is familiar with it when Shadow Thieves starts.

For the most part the story takes place in London, a place that is strange to Peter having grown comfortable to flying around Neverland. He gets thrown in to difficult situations while trying to track down Molly. Afraid of drawing attention to himself, he can not use his flying ability and Tinkerbell has to constantly stay hidden or else she might get captured by a greedy bird catcher.

This book was just as good as the first. I was originally worried about the possibility of a squeal after I finished Starcatchers. I saw no way for them to follow it up and have it come to be anywhere as good as the original. I was surprised. Shadow Thieves is just as epic, just as fun, and just as enjoyable to read as Starcatchers. Like I said, anyone who is a fan of the Peter Pan story should give this series a read.

Ahoy, booklubbers. Today be National Talk Like a Pirate Day. So ye had best be doin’ that.

Tomorrow we be also celebrating with the ceremonial grog at the Portland Pirate Festival.

Arrr.

Wordstock, Portland’s big book festival (convention?), is coming up here in November. Nov 7th – 9th to be exact. This is a annual event that I believe is in it’s in its third year. Authors from all over come to give talks, there’s workshops and other literary related events. Needless to say, it should be fun.

This year, since I decided to be more active in my literary community, I volunteered to help out at Wordstock doing whatever they need me to do. This evening I received an e-mail informing me that I would be a Stage Manager. Read that again. Stage Manager. Manager. I sound pretty important. That’s not the best part. I get an assistant. Is it immature to giggle at the thought of me having an assistant?

Power trip aside, I put up a little link to the Wordstock page on the right hand side of the site that will take you to the Wordstock web site so you can find out more information about the event and so that you can start making your plans to attend accordingly.

For those of you who happen to enjoy The Book Pirate via RSS feed (or whatever) and completely ignore all the time and effort I spent putting in to the design of this site, you can see the Wordstock logo right here.

See. Nifty huh?

The Book Pirate’s Musings on… Book Blogging

It’s Book Blogger’s Appreciation Week. Naturally nobody told me about this until, well, this week. It’s being hosted over at My Friend Amy’s blog and there is a lot going on. So much, in fact, that I can’t keep up. I’ll wade through it later on this week when I have more free time and try and discover some new book blogs. Until then, I did come across one post that caught my eye. It’s about giving advice on book blogging. Since The Book Pirate is still under a year old, I consider myself a newbie to this blogging click. Anyway, to contribute my share on book blogging advice…

What is one thing you wish you knew about blogging when you started or what advice would you give a newbie blogger?
One thing that I would have liked was to be more aware of the other book bloggers out there. When I started I one read one or two blogs. Since then, I have added many more blogs to my RSS feed. I would have also liked to know a little more about how to properly review a book, that I am still figuring out.

What is your best blogging tip?
Do it frequently. It’s easy to slack off and not update for a week. Like writing, it’s a habit that you need to develop.

I’m a big fan of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. They’re classics and if you haven’t read them then, seriously, our friendship is in jeopardy. After Douglas Adams’ death in 2001, it was assumed that the series ended with the fifth book. The BBC also excellently adapted audio dramas based on the five books. Since we are becoming a generation that lacks original ideas and likes to beat franchisees to death, a sixth book in the series entitled “And Another Thing…” is set to be published in October 2009. The book will be written by Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series. I’m unfamiliar with his writing style and humor so this news is a little unnerving for me. I’m worried that Arthur Dent might go the way of Jason Bourne and be beaten to death by some seemingly random author. While a new HHG2TG books sounds fantastic, I don’t know if I am capable of trusting somebody I don’t know with such a precious series. But maybe I should just consider the words of Douglas Adams and not panic.

You can catch up with the official press release and hear what Arthur Dent thinks about coming out of retirement.

Did you know that Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Good Omens) also writes songs? He teamed up with Amanda Palmer (of The Dresden Dolls) on her new solo album to write a song called “I Google You”. Currently, it looks like the only way to get your hands on “I Google You” is to pre-order the CD on the Who Killer Amanda Palmer website. I, personally, love The Dresden Dolls and will probably get around to picking up the album.