So I am looking for a book that I read, oh probably about 6 years ago now. I can't remember the title or the author but I remember that I loved it when I read it. It was a funny, adult take on some fairy tales.
The main character's name was Prince Charming and he goes to rescue Sleeping Beauty and on the way to this rescue you also see Snow White and Cinderella (I think that the evil Stepmother from Cinderella may even try to seduce him?).
I'm really sorry that this is so horribly vague but that is all I can remember and I'm hoping that someone has a clue as to what I'm talking about.
Author: Ooka Shohei (大岡昇平) Title: Fires on the Plain Original Japanese title: Nobi (野火) First line: "My squad leader slapped me in the face." Genre: historical fiction Pages: 246 Recommended for those interested in: World War II (from the side of the Japanese), introversion, postwar Japanese authors. Blurb from the book: This haunting novel explores the complete degradation and isolation of a man by war. The book is set on the island of Leyte in the Philippines during World War II, where the Japanese army is disintegrating under the hammer blows of the American landings. Within this larger disintegration is another, that of a single human being, Private Tamura. The war destroys each of his ties to society, one by one, until Tamura, a sensitive and intelligent man, becomes an outcast...
Tamura is never less than human, even when driven to the ultimate sin against humanity. Shocking as the outward events are, the greatness of the novel lies in its uplifting vision during a time of crushing horror.
Death’s Daughter starts off like your typical chick lit book. We meet Calliope Reaper-Jones, a twenty-something that hates her job, loves shopping, and has just been set up on a blind date by her best friend. That is until the memory charm she cast on herself four years ago breaks, and she remembers who she really is, the immortal daughter of the grim reaper. Callie, who wants nothing more than to live a normal life, is livid at this turn of events until she discovers that her father (death) has been kidnapped along with her older sister. In order to save her family’s immortality, she must complete three tasks and become death herself. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one interested in the job.
I really wanted to like this book, and there were some things I did enjoy. If there’s one thing Benson did do well here, it’s her world building. I enjoyed the mix of old and new religions that created the world of the afterlife. Also, I found that Benson’s writing flows quite well, making the book quite easy to read. What brought everything down was its protagonist. Despite being the same age as the Calliope, I had difficulty connecting with her throughout the book. I didn’t relate at all to the spacey city girl who whined about not being able to goof off more at work, nor did I connect with the hapless “heroine” who kept on stumbling into trouble and having to be rescued. Possessing the maturity of a bratty teenager, Callie seems to spend most of her time crying, getting into danger, and lusting after every age appropriate male. Whenever I began to enjoy the book, Callie would open her mouth and say something that made me want to slap her. I also found that I also had some issues with the logic of the plot. I don’t want to give too much away, but I didn’t understand why people did certain things. Such as why did Callie put a memory charm on herself to forget about her family when she’s immortal? Wouldn’t she notice not aging and dying after a while? There were several times during this book when I had to stop and ask myself similar questions.
As I said before, I really wanted to like this book. Benson is a talented actress and from my memories of meeting her at a Common Rotation concert, one of those rare, genuinely nice people. Unfortunately, as much as I tried over the past four days, I just couldn’t understand why Callie was the way she was and did the things she did. As a result, I never connected with the story. By the time we got to the big twist at the end I found that I didn’t even care. I will not be continuing this series.
Rating: two stars Length: 359 pages Source: paperbackswap Similar Books: For similar paranormal reads try Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan Series (beginning with Dead Witch Walking), Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files (beginning with Storm Front), or Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampires Mysteries (beginning with Dead until Dark). Other books I've read by this author: this is my first
Now I'm going to go feel like a big meanie for writing such a negative review...
I kind of stumbled upon Victoria Holt as an early teen and I think I've picked through all her books and was wondering if anyone has read her and know of anything similar or better? I've also read Phyllis A. Whitney but those are hit or miss for me. Thanks!
"I realized just how effective the demonization of welfare has been when I was actually shocked to hear kids, in a show targeted at other kids, being led in a chant that said being poor or on welfare shouldn’t be shameful and did not reduce their worth as human beings. Can you imagine a TV show, even on PBS, putting something like this on the air today? Our public discourse at this point says that being on welfare is shameful, and that those receiving it in fact aren’t “somebody.” They are dependents, lazy loafers, and their kids are just additional burdens on the state; they don’t have the same rights to dignity and respect as other citizens, and they certainly shouldn’t expect to get it."
This picked up my mood considerably today. And while it's not specifically advice or a suggestion of some kind, maybe it'll pick up someone's mood too?
------------------------------------------------ // edit: Throughout the course of the night I have been touched by so many of these stories and replies that I just wanted to say thank you. Just imagine.... For someone to reply, I think, there's someone else out there that isn't replying but might have been touched by this video, what you said, or what you're going through. And I think that's powerful. I also think it's evident that this is message has uplifted and made some of you stronger today so for those of you who would like, I have converted the youtube video to an MP3 so you can download it and listen to it when you need it.
Just hold on everyone, it'll get easier. We're not in this alone. (hug)
The Noughties Were Shit, proclaims one British blog, looking back with a jaundiced eye on the decade just gone. Personally, I paid zero attention to the celebrity chefs and crappy inventions the blog marshals as evidence of the decade's inherent excrementality. Any decade is going to look like rubbish if you pay attention to celeb chefs, let's face it. And complaining about things you nevertheless fail to switch off -- and even, in fact, switch on specifically to hate and slate -- is a key symptom of The British Disease, much more likely to perpetuate crap than end it.
I want, over a series of Click Opera posts, as we approach the end of the year and the end of the decade, to look back at my noughties, and specifically the five or six albums I released. If I had to conjure a single metaphor for how the decade felt to me, back in 2000, I'd liken it to a blank piece of paper. I felt as if there were no rules, no commercial expectations. Just as I was free to travel (I spent the decade in New York, in Tokyo, then, mostly, in Berlin), I was also free to "experiment", to make things up as I went along, to improvise, to develop a sonic grammar that was mine alone; an electronic folk-lieder aimed as much at the "salons" of Chelsea art galleries as the rock circuit.
Although some of my more conservative fans -- notably Swede John Thelin, once (as "Count V") the mainstay of the alt.fan.momus newsgroup -- characterised the noughties as a time in which "Momus forgot how to write proper songs", others -- notably the Web 2.0 generation, who ranked Nervous Heartbeat and Frilly Military at least as high, in terms of YouTube views, as my old hit Hairstyle of the Devil -- liked my noughties stuff better than what had gone before. With 154,000 views this -- my 2001 collaboration with Montréal group Bran Van 3000, reggaeton vocalist Eek-a-Mouse and actress Liane Balaban -- is the most-viewed Momus-related track on YouTube:
So how did things stand with me, musically and stylistically, at the lead-in of this "fresh reel of blank tape", the decade we learned to represent with two zeroes? I think a key track -- and one I still like a lot -- is my 2000 collaboration with Dusseldorf band Kreidler, entitled Mnemorex. It's key to what comes later because, for a start, it proposes a new sort of electronic folk song:
As in the Bran Van 3000 song, I'm only responsible for the topline melody and the words and singing here, but this points the way forward -- my 2008 collaboration with Joe Howe is still very much on the same page:
Mnemorex also points forward in the sense that it's German, and references Japan (the Osaka World's Fair, also known as Expo '70), and I'll spend most of the 00s with a predominantly German-Japanese frame of reference. Even living in New York between 2000 and 2002, the records I was listening to were mostly made by Berliners like Tarwater, F.S. Blumm, Pole and Rechenzentrum. In 2000 I returned to Europe to tour Germany with Kreidler, who really deserve their own Click Opera entry; after a long absence they released a new album last month called Mosaik 2014:
I don't want to snow the blank sheet with too much data, so I'll close this scene-setting entry. Next in this series I'll cover the first proper Momus album of the new decade, my, ahem, folktronica album, Folktronic. In that entry, and the ones that follow, I'll be re-listening to my noughties albums, tracing their influences, intentions and themes, and recalling the times and places they were made in. And one reason I'll be doing this is that it's pretty safe to hazard the guess that nobody else will, though there'll no doubt be endless artistic explorations of, for instance, the UK's Top 10 bestselling albums of the decade. Here they are, just to set the scene:
James Blunt Back To Bedlam Dido No Angel Amy Winehouse Back To Black David Gray Wide Ladder Dido Life For Rent The Beatles 1 Leona Lewis Spirit Coldplay A Rush Of Blood To The Head Keane Hopes And Fears Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters
Shakespeare's Landlord (Lily Bard Mysteries, Book 1) Charlene Harris 2/5. Lily is the main character in the book series. In the first book she finds someone placing a dead body near her house when she is out on her nightly, comforting walks. She doesnt want to bring attention to herself so she anonymously makes a call to the cheif of police who lives close by. Throughout this novel she finds herself trying to figure out who the murderer is while cleaning her many clients homes.She chose this job to keep to herself. She cant put her finger on the case but knows it must be solved for her to ever feel comfortable in her small town again. Of course a book like this needs some romance. She finds herself involved with her instructor. Lily has learned how to protect herself because of her unforgetful past. She cant seem to put it behind her. Someone in her small town is letting her know they know about her past as well by trying to spook her. Through out the book Lily is trying to understand her liking of Marshall, find the town killer, and make sure her past remains hidden.
I was impressed with this book after I was about 75% through it. (Not sure about page number due to reading it on the kindle.) I had started it and was a little down about the plot but then it started getting better. I would have probably given the book a 3 if it hadnt taken me so long to get to a part I really enjoyed. Once I did though, I was on edge. I have already read 2 more books of this series and am on my fourth. I will post another review tomorrow on book 2.
Firstly, I must say I absolutely hate these covers. Her mark looks like a giant tramp stamp. It doesn't even look like a real tattoo--it looks like a peel on sticker you'd get from a machine for a quarter, honestly.
Secondly, I re-read this for the first time since I was 15. All I can say is: wow, I can't believe I read this kinky stuff when I was so young! This novel tells the story of Phedre no'Delaunay, a girl sold off as a whore from a young, tender age to the god (of love) Naamah's service. Luckily, she is fostered first by the Night Court and then by a handsome and mysterious man alongside a fair boy and becomes a learned and multi-talented courtesan, among other things.
Phedre has been marked from birth with both an unlucky name and an unlucky scarlet mote in her eye. The scarlet mote represents Kushiel's Dart, meaning she's been struck by the god to be very kinky, horny, and submissive. This makes her a one-of-a-kind commodity among the rich sadists of Terre D'Ange (Land of Angels), a near-medieval France.
The setting was quite interesting. There is the nearly French Terre D'ange, the Nordic Skaldi, the Scottish Alba, the Roman Tiberius, among others. The reader ends up seeing several of these lands throughout the course of the novel. The varying religions and politics were engaging enough to keep me interested.
In general, the writing is fairly good, but the prose can be much wordier than it need me. Over and over Phedre says things like "although how this happened, I cannot say" or "I did not learn it then, but I learned of it later." Just explain at the beginning that this is your "memory" and it's imperfect, and leave it at that! Phedre also weeps frequently and usually has sex with most of the men she meets.
Overall, it's an entertaining enough novel and worth reading if erotic fantasy is your cup of tea.
If you like my reviews, this journal is full of reviews of books I read, some films and tv shows I watch, gadget reviews, occasional looks into what it's like being an ex-pat American in Scotland...feel free to add me as a friend if that sounds vaguely interesting to you!
On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.
Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.
We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!
As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.
Hello! I'm an author and when I posted here a while ago about my young adult fantasy novel, Basajaun. Some of the people who commented asked me to give a heads up when the book was more widely available, so I wanted to let you guys know that you can now buy Basajaun on Amazon.com, here:
"Basajaun is a beautiful book, written by a masterful wordsmith!" --T. A. Barron (The Lost Years Of Merlin, Merlin's Dragon, The Great Tree Of Avalon)
"an original and memorable tale that young adults and older children will certainly enjoy" --Fantasy Book Review
"an unusual, intriguing young adult fantasy" --Lansing State Journal newspaper
These are strictly my PERSONAL opinios of these books, and I hope it's helpful! --"Graceling" by Kristin Cashore (5/5): This is now my 2nd favorite book of all time! Katsa is a strong woman who stands by what she believe and learns to make her own choices and not be a subject in society. This is a heart-wrenching tale of power and love that will leave you breathless. I would recommend this book to EVERYONE! It is so beautifully written. Props on it being her DEBUT novel as well!! --"Fire" by Kristin Cashore (4.5/5): Another job well done. It's two different women in two different places all in the same world. This is her second novel, but it takes place 30 years before 'Graceling'. Fire is a woman of a different kind and the only one of her kind. She doesn't quite fit and she learns to embrace it. This is another truly beautiful story. From the moment I started reading, I never wanted it to end. SERIOUSLY, read these books!! You will not be dissappointed!
I want your opinions! And now, more book recommendations, :D ---Happy Reading
This is my first post here and it's a question (sorry! I'll do a review soon!!) about a book whose title I've been desperately trying to remember:
The book was actually (as far as I can remember) part of a short YA series. It was about a little black cat who moved into a new neighborhood who starts making friends and having adventures with all her new cat friends. Some fun parts of the book were that the black cat was really skilled at dancing "The Sailor's Hornpipe," another cat played a diamond "nose flute" and there were a pair of twin cats named "Romulus" and "Remus."
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I remember really loving those books as a kid and was trying to figure out how to get my paws (hahaha...*cough* ahem...) on that series.
I am looking for some horror/thriller or just all around disturbing books. Since my book list is growing pretty short again, I would like to make a new list and I figured you guys could help me :)
I've already read "The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum "Perfect Victim: The true story of the girl in the box"
I've had a toothache since Sunday night; have been treating with lots of rinses of Listerine, salt water, hydrogent peroxide, and tea tree oil in an attempt to mitigate it until I can see a low-cost local dentist.
In the last hour, I've developed a serious pocket of swelling over where my upper wisdom tooth and the one next to it used to be. It's so swollen I can't comfortably put my teeth together. I've fot some kind of serious abscess under the gum there.
In the last HOUR.
I am going tomorrow to my dad's dentist; this is clearly an emergency.
Any other suggestions on what I can do until tomorrow? Anyone do the sticking a teabag in your mouth thing as a home remedy for relief? Please? Thanks!!!
Important note: Clove oil is said to be highly efficacious, but as it is the one substance on earth I know I am highly allergic to, anything involving cloves is...right out. Sadly.
Edit, or postscript, rather: this was in the queue overnight; since it was posted but not yet up, I did in fact go to the dentist, and have some lovely turbocharged antibiotics which, should you be wondering, cost something like 4 bucks. Wonderfully, the problem came from the remaining roots of a long-gone tooth, and were not caused by the tooth next to it (I was sure I needed a root canal; he says the tooth looks hunkydory in x-ray.) None of this will be overly expensive, and he will work with me on that. Once the infection has calmed, he will extract the remnant roots, and all will be well. I thank all of y'all for your great comments; not sure if I should andwer them individually. But: given the severity of possible consequences of this (as the comments show), I hope this post helps others in the future.
Does anyone have any experience using Upromise? The only reservations I'm seeing from people online is a "big brother" complaint because they have access to your credit and debit card statements, but that doesn't worry me so much as long as the company is reputable (and they're owned by Sallie Mae, so... yikes). The other complaint I'm reading is that you don't make the kind of money that would put someone through college - more like $50 here or there - but I figure it's a poor skill to take whatever you can get, right? What do you guys think?
I have some coupons that I have no use for and would like to trade for other coupons/giftcards of roughly the same value. These are valid in Canada.
up to 50% off complete pair eyeglasses & prescription sun at Lens Crafters (valid now through December 12, 2009) - I am willing to mail it priority so that you receive it quickly
3$ off stuffed Butterball turkey (exp. December 31, 2009)
10$ off Wii Fit (exp. February 28, 2010)
2$ off Pure Energy ValueCharger battery charger (exp. March 31, 2010)
bored
Author: Ooka Shohei (大岡昇平)
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
