Sept.25, 2009

Here are a couple more quick notes on books I finished recently:

Basic Texas Birds: A Field Guide, by Mark Lockwood, 2007. Non-fiction, a photographic guide to the 200 "most common" Texas birds. Not bad for a beginners’ field guide to Texas bird life. Not all that useful, though. I'm glad it was a library book, because I doubt I'll ever need to refer to it again. Rating: 3

A Supremely Bad Idea: three mad birders and their quest to see it all, by Luke Dempsey, 2008. Non-fiction, I actually finished this about three weeks ago, but forgot to add it when I started this blog. A British guy moves to the US, becomes a successful magazine editor, gets converted to birding my some friends (a husband and wife, the other two of the three "mad birders"), and chronicles some of his/their adventures. I really wanted to love this book, but I ended up just liking it. The author is a little too sure that he really thinks he's a great guy, and his self-surendness (definitely NOT a word) and love for his own cleverness gets annoying from time to time. But he is funny, and the book is entertaining. IF this kind of subject interests you, give it a go. Otherwise it will be like watching paint dry slowly. Rating: 4

Shadow Magic, by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennet, 2009. Fiction, Fantasy. BY a new duo of authors, whose first book (Havemercy, which I Haven'tread) got quite a bit of acclaim. Pretty well written. I stuck with it until towards the end, when I finally lost interest and gave up. I rarely read a book until this close to the end without finishing it, but it finally wore me out. Why? 1) too many POVs- it tries to follow 4 characters while telling only one basic story, and 2) a weird homosexual slant without being overtly homosexually oriented. I don't mind gay characters; a well-written story is a well-written story to me. NONE of the main characters are gay, as far as the book says, but the relationship between 2 sets of 2 male characters is SO gay it just got tiresome to me. Was it an unstated agenda, or just the way the 2 authors (a gay couple? I have no idea, but the book jacket gives that impression) write, and completely unintentional? I couldn't tell you, but it was weird. And once again, openly gay characters- fine. This was just odd, like a 17th century "underground" gay book where no one was gay according to the story, but they acted like they were. I hope this doesn't make me bigoted, because I like to think of myself as open-minded. But I really didn't like the character interaction, whatever the reason. Rating: 3.

I also read a bunch of Graphic Novels from the library: Several X-Men volumes, which were good, nothing exceptional. Also I tried The Walking Dead: Volume 1, by Robert Kirkman, which was great (rating = 4). It's a "zombie apocalypse" story, which has certainly been done to death, but the first volume was very good, and a nice change from the usual zombie stuff. I'm going to have to read more of this series; I am requesing some from the library. Also I read the Dresdan Files (GN adaptation of a popular series about a wizard in Chicago), vol. 1, which was alright, but not great (rating = 3). Maybe the actual book would be better, I haven't tried it yet.