I LIVE! (And I am in desperate need of some good book recommendations.)

[apple_pathways]

I went to the doctor, and the horrific lump on my forehead is well on its way to vanquishment. (Is that a word?) While it is an infection, it's not anything particularly scary like staph. They numbed up my forehead, drained the lump, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. (Which I must take every six hours for a week. Any bets on how many doses I'll miss? Also of note: the warning label on the bottle says "DO NOT LIE DOWN WITHIN TEN MINUTES OF TAKING THIS MEDICATION". Um: WTF?! Before I Google the reason for the warning, anyone wanna take any guesses as to what will happen if I disregard the warning?)

So I walked around with a bandage on my forehead all day. Not necessarily because I needed it, but because the lump was particularly unpleasant-looking and I was doing society a favor by concealing it. I got to explain to every single one of my students today why I was wearing it (kids love talking about pus), but the most uncomfortable conversation came from the cashier at Kroger: "Oh dear, what happened?"

"Oh, I had to have a cyst on my forehead drained."

"Oh, my husband gets those all the time. As long as no one's beating you!"

Yeah, knock wood, right?

TOPIC CHANGE! So I am in a serious Book Slump. I can't remember the last thing I read that I just couldn't put down. I really, really need some recommendations or, at the very least, some Lovely Book Chat. So: any recs? Anything new that you've heard is good? Anything old that you've re-read a dozen times? What are you reading right now, and how do you like it? What's next on the list?


As for me, I am reading Armageddon's Children" by Terry Brooks, which I suppose I'm enjoying, but I'm more than 100 pages in (of out approximately 300 or so) and it still feels like the author is setting things up. (It's the first book in a trilogy, so that may be why. Although I prefer series where each book is more-or-less self-contained, and could be read as a stand-alone story.) The world-building is majorly creepy, which I enjoy, and there are some interesting characters. We'll see how it turns out.

I'm also reading The Metropolis Case, the debut novel of Matthew Gallaway. It sounds like a good read: if I can just get into it. Amazon.com has this to say about it: "In his ambitious debut, Gallaway jumps backward and forward in time between two cities, spiraling in on four characters connected by music: Lucien, an opera singer coming-of-age in mid-19th-century Paris; Anna, an opera singer reaching the height of her career in 1960s New York; Maria, an extraordinarily promising young singer but a difficult student; and Martin, an aging lawyer whose love of music might save his life. The ties between them are at first so tenuous that readers may wonder when, how, or if their narratives will converge." This is the point I'm at in the novel. :P

And I just bought this:



It's been awhile since I've devoted myself to a good romance novel, and this series by Madeline Hunter looks good. I've read some of her other books, and I like the way she manages to weave the romance into a larger historical plot.

SO: rec me some books, please and thank you! I can't believe I've gone this long without getting excited about a book...

Comments

[roh-wyn.livejournal.com]

Um, I don't know what you like, but aside from the stuff in book club (much of which is of the literary-but-good-lord-I-could-write-better genre), I've been reading a lot of historical mysteries (specifically Maureen Ash's Templar Knight series), and a bunch of non-fiction that I'm pretty sure would not interest you.

[switchbladesis.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it was only a cyst! Also, that you aren't being beaten.

This is where I hope you read scifi/fantasy.

I'm still trying to push The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms into everyone's hands: it's a fantasy novel, about a young warrior princess getting sucked into the politics of the capitol while trying to avenge her mother's death. It's one of the few fantasy novels I've read recently where I was actually surprised by the plot twists-they made sense in retrospect, but they weren't something I saw coming. You can read sample chapters here to see if you're interested.

Last really good book I read was probably The Vintner's Luck. A man is visited by an angel once a year in 19th century France. Eventually, they fall in love, or something like it. Pretty, pretty language, interesting metaphors. There's a sequel, but it's hard to get in the states.

I've also been reminded how much I like Lynn Flewelling's Tamir trilogy. I mean, I like the Nightrunner series fine-it's cute, but Tamir is just slightly darker and heavier (it's still not, like Song of Ice and Fire dark). It takes place in a formerly matriarchal society-except the current King usurped the throne from his sister and is killing all of the high born females. The main character is born a princess, but they use dark magic to disguise her gender. Complications ensue.

The first one is the Bone Doll's Twin.

Right now, I'm reading Sweetness and Power, an ethnography that focuses on the role of sugar in Carribean and European cultures, and how the slave trade changed that role in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's kind of dense.

[inkdancer.livejournal.com]

Let's see... I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy and I can't stop pimping it to everyone I know. Also if you're interested in something very challenging, Special Topics in Calamity Physics is one of my favorite books ever and is much smarter than anything I have ever read. If you want to feel some nerdy glory and still be amazed by the quality of literature, then The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao would be a good choice.

[sabriel75.livejournal.com]

LOL! I just bought Hunter's book today and Just Like Heaven, Julia Quinn's most recent one because I lurve her.

[wethrowknives.livejournal.com]

lol why did I reply to some random comment? god you leave livejournal for a bit and when you come back you don't know how to work it!

ANYWAY, like I was saying, I am currently reading Game of Thrones, which is an excellent book, although it is part of a series and each of them are 800+ pages. But I really enjoy them, plus it's a good show!

[jesterjoker.livejournal.com]

Everyone I see has been getting suggested with either "This Is Not A Game" or "Thicker Than Water" because they pwned my world. I really liked "A Gentleman's Game" too which I finished the last few days.

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm 110ish pages into the mammoth A Place of Greater Safety, which is about the French Revolution. Seems pretty good so far!

[alias-amy.livejournal.com]

I have no book recs, as I can't even manage to get my Book Club selection read month to month, not even the ones I picked! Although next month is The Hunger Games and everyone makes it sound like that will read itself for me and just tunnel into my brain while I sleep.

But I wanted to chime in and say "happy benign tumor!" I suspect you are not supposed to lie down because you will get nauseated and/or heart-burn, and most likely there's something in your medicine that isn't good for the tissues of your esophagus, which is terribly delicate.

I had actually composed a very long response the other day while I was in the gym about your previous discussion on femininity, but now that just seems so long ago. Time is flying, no?

[jacknjill270.livejournal.com]

If urban fantasy is your thing, I really liked Sandman Slim and the sequel Kill the Dead, by Richard Kadrey. If you've seen the movie Sin City and enjoyed it then I think you'll like this series. It's a revenge story mixed with demons and magic with a gritty noir feel. There's lots of violence and smart-ass sarcasm and screwed up characters and I loved it. It's like reading a really awesome b-movie.

One of the best horror/ghost stories I've read is Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. An old rock star who collects creepy, morbid, grotesque objects (a snuff film is part of his collection, for example) buys a dead man's suit online with the promise that the man's ghost is with it. He thinks it's just a joke, but it turns out the ghost is very real and wants to kill him. It was seriously creepy, the pacing was perfect, I can't rec it enough.

I second the rec for Vintner's Luck, I read it last year and really enjoyed it.

The book I'm currently reading is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's set in post-WWII Spain, where this kid is taken by his dad to a special library where rare books are taken to be protected from being lost forever. He's told to pick one book, and he reads it and falls in love with the story. But then he finds out that it's very, very rare - someone has been burning all the copies of the author's books. I haven't gotten very far into it yet, but it looks promising.

Hopefully you'll find something there you'll enjoy!

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

I think probably if you lie down within ten minutes of taking the meds your head will explode. *nodnod*

Have you read any China Mieville yet? I've only read Perdido Street Station so far, but I have The Scar and fully intend to read it soon, and I'm excited to get my hands on, like, EVERYTHING he's written. Perdido was a cannot-put-down book for me and my mom and a few of my friends, but some of my other friends were like, "meh". That seems to be the pattern; people are either foaming-at-the-mouth-OMG for China, or decidedly unimpressed. He does this sort of dark, grimy, creepy, science fiction-fantasy stuff, with exciting plots and interesting characters, and his world-building is rich and intricate and unique. I adore him.

My favorite ever book ever in my life EVER is Watership Down by Richard Adams. As Sawyer from Lost aptly put it, "It's about bunnies." Adams gives his rabbits language and culture and mythology and laws and politics without really anthropomorphizing them; he creates a solid and interesting world with great characters and a narrative comprising friendship, adventure, danger, horror, violence, and a wee tiny bit of romance... all with wild English rabbits. I've been reading it over and over again since I was in elementary school, but it is plenty complex for adults and, actually, too complex for the vast majority of children of that age.