The Book Pirate

Look at this! My first update from my iPhone. Gosh typing on something this small is annoying plus the wordpress app already crashed twice. Technology. Pffst. What is it good for?

Anyway. In my penultimate term here at PSU I am enrolled in a Pulp Fiction/Film Noir class. After reading the syllibus I am quite excited about the class. We’re reading 10 classic hard boiled crime books and watching the film version as well. First up it The Maltesse

I was given a copy of The Hunger Games by my sister and she demanded I read it at once. While I am a huge fan of young adult fiction I had never heard of this book but I chalked it up to the fact that I had recently been busy with school.

The basic plot: In the future there is a country called Panem, this country exists in a place that used to be something known as the United States. Within Panem lies a huge Capital City that went to war several decades past with those who live in 13 run-down districts. Each district specializes in something different. Those in District 11 specialize in farming and orchards, those in District 12 with coal mining.

As punishment and a reminder of how the districts were beaten by the Capital, the government in the Capital hosts an event each year called The Hunger Games. Two tributes, one boy and one girl from each district are chosen to compete and be thrown into an expansive arena. Basically, kill your competitors and be the last left standing-and you win. You are showered with money and glory for the rest of your life…and oh yeah…you get to live.

We see the games through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, the girl tribute from District 12 who has been illegally hunting animals to survive with a bow and arrow. She is a great and interesting hero for the story and hearing what goes on in her head is interesting and moves the story forward in an exciting way.

I really enjoyed this book. I haven’t read many books this fast and I had to slow myself down sometimes because I just wanted to keep going and find out what happened. The other characters that are introduced make the story exciting and expand the world quite a bit. Characters like Haymitch, who is a sort of mentor to Katniss and Rue, another tribute, were among my favorites. Also, Cinna, a stylist assigned to Katniss was quite a surprise.

Yeah, a stylist. One interesting aspect to this book was how much it mirrored the world we are living in. The Hunger Games is a sort of Reality show style competition, being televised with everyone in the districts forced to watch and those in the Capital enjoying the show. The tributes are given stylists, are forced to do interviews, and the better they perform in the arena, the more corporate sponsors they receive. This means gifts, things that literally fall out of the sky to help the competitor. It was exciting seeing what Katniss does to play up to the cameras in order to receive some help. She really knows how to play the game.

But speaking of the cameras, that’s really my only complaint. The author doesn’t really explain where cameras are, how they are attached or how they even work in the future. In one scene when Katniss and another tribute are holed up in a cave, she knows the cameras can still see her. How does she know this? I wish there had been a little more clarification. Gifts from sponsors fall out of the sky and we are left to assume that they are dropped in by hover craft. If that were the case, wouldn’t it alert other tributes as to where someone was, therefore making it easier to perform a kill? Who knows. Perhaps those questions are answered in Collin’s second book in the series, Catching Fire, which I will be reading as well.

More than anything this book examines what it is like for young adults to be affected by war. Katniss hates that she is a toy of the Capital and the book does a great job, not only through her but also other characters, at attempting to maintain a sense of individuality and morality when against all odds you are being forced not to. Honestly, put down all those vampire books and read this. It’s much more interesting, and while not wholey original (I’m thinking of Battle Royale) still kept me interested and satisfied.

2010. 2010. 2010. What can I say about 2010? “Hello”?

I hope to be a more active blogger this year. I only reviewed 16 (that few?) books this year although I am sure that I have read many more then that. I’ll get better at posting, I swear.

Then there is the matter of The Book Parrot (aka Terry) who will also be posting about books on this site. Him and I have pretty similar tastes in books so it works out well and you may get two different takes on the same book.

I also updated all the links to other book blogs in the sidebar.

Anyway, Happy new year.

The Book Pirate welcomes a new shipmate to the crew, the Book Parrot! He is currently reading five books…updates to come.

Gregory Maguire. You might know him from such Broadway plays such as Wicked. If you’re a fan a books, you might have read his two follow-up OZ books or his take on fairy tales (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister or Mirror Mirror). I’m not well versed in the works of Maguire. What I do know is that I would categorize all of his stories as fantasy stories and generally not my cup of tea. However, The Next Queen of Heaven appears to be a vast departure from his typical work and is set in modern times (well, if you still consider 1999 to be “modern”) and centers around a dysfunctional family.

The novel centers around the dysfunctional Scales family after the highly-religious mother, Leonitina, gets bumped in the head with a Catholic statuette and starts speaking in tongues and it’s up to the rebellious daughter, Tabitha, to hold the family together and survive the Christmas season. Along the way there are elderly nuns, rival churches, gay choir leaders, pregnancies, and a flying baby Jesus.

To sum up this book: Fantastic.

I love how outrageous Maguire made this story. It reminds me a little of Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel (you know, without the zombies). The story is set up that it follows many different, distinctive characters that have their own stories that all end up coming together at the end. I love stories that do that. I thought that the story was perfectly paced and balanced and most of all hilarious. It you have the opportunity, you should definitely check out this book.

Note: This book is distributed by Concord Free Press who believe in the Haley Joel Osment method of paying-it-forward. They give away books if you promise to donated something to someone. You pay with karma. Awesome?

After residing in Portland for close to 4 1/2 years now, you’d think that SOMEBODY would have told me about the cute little bookshop along Hawthorne called Murder By The Book.

It’s a bookshop that is exclusively tailored toward the mystery-lover demographic. When I entered earlier today, while finishing up some last minute Christmas shopping for myself, the kind ladies who worked there immediately offered me cookies and cider. And no, this wasn’t some sample used as a ploy to get me to spend $4 in some attached cafe. This was actual cookies and cider that were free out of the goodness of their murder-loving hearts. This is a pleasant surprise, I said to myself while munching on a star shaped cookie and perusing the noir section. Perhaps it was the cider, perhaps it was that I wasn’t paying attention, but as luck would have it I bumped in to a little table piled with presents. The sign on the table stated that these presents were a collection of books that you could purchase and not know what they were. Because I love presents and a good mystery, I bought two of these bundles. You love a good mystery too, right?

I thought so. I bought two of these. One for me, one for you. You can have it. I practically insist. So I am holding a contest. You can enter in the following ways:

1) You can get one entry by leaving a comment and telling me one of your favorite mystery books
2) You can get another by tweeting about this contest (You can use this link http://tr.im/I85e). Send me an @thebookpirate to let me know.
3) Lastly, you can get another by posting about this on your blog

That’s a possibility of 3 entries. On December 31st I will draw a winner and send you one of the bundles the books (still wrapped). You can even pick out which bundle you would like.

Also, MBTB has a blog which you should totally check out.

Patrick Wensink’s Sex Dungeon For Sale! is his collection of eleven short stories that are not your traditional short story. These stories have titles like “Chicken Soup for the Kidnapper’s Soul” and “The Many Lives of James Brown’s Capes”. One of the main draw of this collection is that the stories could be considered a little odd. In “Wash, Rinse, Repeat”, dishwashers are killing their operators with it’s new Kill setting and slowly transforming in to a Romeo and Juliet-esq tale.

My favorite story of the bunch is “Pandemic Jones” which also happens to be the longest story in the book coming in at a lengthy 18 pages. It’s a heartwarming love story about two people who met at pharmaceuticals company and work together to spread viruses all over the world. What I liked about this one is that the added length gives the reader time to get to know the characters while the other stories are brief and the characters do not really stand out. With some of the other stories characters play second fiddle to the oddity of the story. “Sex Dungeon For Sale!”, the book’s title story, is only 2 pages long and that kills me. I love the title of the book, and the idea of a real estate agent trying to sell a house with a built in sex dungeon seems really, really funny to me.

In the end, the stories were either hit-or-miss. I really liked some of them but the shorter ones didn’t leave any room for character development and could have benefited from being expanded upon. This is an odd collection of stories and if that is your thing then be sure to check out Sex Dungeon For Sale!. You can check out a sampling of his book on his web site.

Bust out your Crayola 120ct Crayons! It’s time for a coloring contest.

Patrick Wensink, author of Sex Dungeon For Sale!, is hosting a coloring contest where you can win fabulous prizes. And by fabulous prizes I mean a selection of Wensink’s favorite books of 2009. You can win signed copies of 4 books (Help! A Bear is Eating Me! [my review] and Fool are included, autographed BW). Oddly enough, he does not include a copy of his own book, Sex Dungeon For Sale. Perhaps Patrick does not think that highly of himself or maybe he is simply trying to save on postage. Regardless, you should totally enter.

Here’s how it works. Download and print the coloring page that you fancy. Each page is based off of a story from SD4S (My Son Thinks He’s French, Jesus Toast, Chicken Soup for the Kidnapper’s Soul). Color it in either by hand or digitally, then e-mail it to patrickwensink@gmail.com with your name, address and phone number. The deadline is December 14th. You can check out his rather random web site for more details if you still feel ill informed about this contest.

I like reliving my childhood by buy old Choose Your Own Adventures books whenever I visit Powells. I came across this rather in depth analysis of how the books are organized (complete with pictures). If you like CYOA books, you should probably check this out.

… I have a blog. I almost forgot. Been so wrapped up in school this term that reading for leisure is a rarity.

There are a few things I felt worth mentioning in this eclectic blog post.

First,

Christopher Moore has posted the first two chapters of his newest book Bite Me (due out April 1st, 2010). Bite Me is a follow up to Moore’s 1995 Bloodsucking Fiends and 2007’s You Suck. While I am getting tired of all the attentions vampires are getting, You Suck may stand as my favorite Christopher Moore book. Moreover, the protagonist of Bite Me is Abby Normal who was first introduced in A Dirty Job. Aren’t book crossovers fun? Anyway, the first two chapters of Bite Me are basically a summary of events from Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck. Really though, you should just go read both of those books.

Read the chapters at Moore’s blog here.

I still haven’t read Fool even though I purchased it the week it came out. I feel I may enjoy it more after I complete the Shakespeare class I am taking this term.

Secondly,

I had to read The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction for the Contemporary American Short Story class. It was already. As with all anthologies, some stories I liked while others were not as enjoyable. Now that we are done with this book, we’ve moved on to…

The Best American Short Stories 2009. I recognize ZERO of the authors featured in this anthology. Most of the stories are taken from the New Yorker it seems. I’ve noticed spelling errors in a couple stories which is distracting. Who do I blame for that? Alice Sebold?

Thirdly,

I don’t really have a thirdly, but I believe things are best done in groups of threes. Oh, Augustin Burroughs will have a reading at the Bagdad Theater next week hosted by Powells to promote his latest book You Better Not Cry. That will be fun. I saw him when he was touring for Possible Side Effects. More details here.