tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45157197789210897072024-02-19T02:05:48.222-05:00Gabriel ReadsBook reviews from an opinionated reader.gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.comBlogger395125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-41918844805551421012015-01-29T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-29T08:00:01.091-05:00Author Interview: Donald Schlaich<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="im" style="background-color: white;"><b style="line-height: 19.7999992370605px;">How about we start out by having you introduce yourself? Tell us a bit about who you are.</b></span><br />
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My name is Donald Schlaich, and I'm a graphics arts professional and aspiring author. I've finished and self-published my first novel, Reckless Magus, and am working on the edits for the sequel, Dragon Magus.</div>
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I'm a geek who's been a fan of fantasy my entire life, and who underwent a kind of revelation when I discovered Terry Pratchett in Highschool. I'm also an avid biker, who sometimes regrets living in a city that gets ten feet of snow a year.</div>
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<b>Where did the impetus to write come from? </b></div>
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I've woven stories in my head for as long as I can remember, and when I was young, I can probably say I might have lost at least one job to living partially in daydreams as I went about my work. The stories have been a part of who I am for so long, and once I actually started putting them on paper, I found it hard to stop.</div>
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<b>Explain who Abe Spellchaser is and how he came to be.</b></div>
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Abraxas "Abe" Spellchaser is an apprentice Magician, someone who has the potential to understand and use every type of magic. He's been trained by his father since he was ten years old in the use of his magic, including walking between worlds. He's confident in his knowledge, but he's mostly book-taught in his magic, and he's been stranded without any of his notes in a place where magic doesn't work according to rules he had written down. In place of his notes, he's left with his inquisitive nature and a tendency to get himself into trouble.</div>
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Abraxas Spellchaser is also a character I played several years ago in a Dungeons and Dragons game. I lived inside his head for a couple of years as I played him, and the first real long-form writing I did was recording the story of the game we were playing at the time.</div>
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<b>How did you go about creating the universe in <i>Reckless Magus</i>?</b></div>
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I started with the characters of Abraxas and Simon, two characters who I already had a strong handle on, along with the history of Abe's father Nerick. There are bits of this universe that have been growing in my head for almost fifteen years, and once I had the two characters who the first story would center on, the rest of the world started to come together.</div>
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<b>Magic features very heavily in the novel. Explain how the magic in your books works.</b></div>
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There are many different disciplines of magic, of which the first book only highlights a few. Not everyone has the talent to use every type of magic, and those who focus on a given type of magic often are referred to by their primary discipline.</div>
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* Mental magic, the ability to speak mind-to-mind, edit another person's memories, or even restructure their whole thinking process. Those who are skilled in this type of magic are typically referred to as Espers.</div>
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* Spirit magic is the one I've had some of the most fun figuring out and expanding upon. It's specialists are called shamans, and they specialize in the ability to reach across the boundary between waking and sleep to reach the creatures that live in the Dream Lands, a place made of spiritual energy, and making deals with them. In the universe of the Spellchaser Chronicles, this is probably the most common discipline, since even a minor talent in this area is required to be able to dream.</div>
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* Energy manipulation, the creation of light and energy, and the binding of that to an object, and it's specialists are called Illuminators.</div>
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* Travel magic, the ability to open doors and bend space to get from here to there. This discipline is the one Abe probably had the most practice with, and the one he most regrets not being able to use throughout the first book.</div>
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* Magicians are those who have the ability to use each discipline of magic, though their talents may vary in terms of strength and how much they've practiced with any given discipline.</div>
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There are several more disciplines, but I feel like going too much farther is probably a spoiler for future books.</div>
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<b>Who is your favorite character? Who is your least favorite character?</b></div>
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I think my favorite character in the first book is Ari, a thief who Abe partners with. Ari is a person who goes through life with a laugh, never taking anything too seriously, and it's fun just watching him go to work in a scene.</div>
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I'm not sure if I have a least favorite character; I think to best write people you have to at least like them enough to understand what's going on in their head. I have characters I love to hate, like Jacob, an Esper who works against Abe and Simon because of his own worries and feelings of inadequacy.</div>
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<b>If Abe's adventures were made into a movie, who would you like to see cast in which roles?</b></div>
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I would love to see the Spellchaser Chronicles made into a movie, though I've never taken time to go out and character board what I'd like everyone to look at. Maybe Luke Youngblood, but that may just be reaching out for a solid actor from a show I'm watching right now (Galavant's Sid).</div>
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<b>What's next for Abe and his companions?</b></div>
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Abe's next adventure is in the editing phase, and there's an element of traditional sword and sorcery to his life: where he goes, trouble either follows or was already getting ready to throw it's coming out party when he arrives.</div>
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<b>What are some things you'd like to write that aren't in the Spellchaser universe?</b></div>
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I've got a couple of other fantasy stories that I'm going to spend some time on once I'm done with Dragon Magus. After I finish those, I'm not sure what comes next. I may spend a bit of time world building, and see what my beta readers enjoy me fleshing out.</div>
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<b>Why did you decide to publish your book the way you did and what has your experience been? Would you recommend it to other authors?</b></div>
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I self-published Reckless Magus, and some of the reason is that I figured I had the kind of skills I needed to do that from my day job. I wasn't completely right, but it's been a wonderful learning experience.</div>
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I also wanted to self-publish because there's a way in which I like the independence offered by self-publishing. I wasn't paid any small advance that my book had to earn back before I saw the long-term profits, but instead it's been a slow trickle of sales, and the size of that trickle is somewhat my fault. I got caught up in the other parts of my life and haven't been pushing Abe's story as much as I should have. </div>
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<b>What advice do you have for new writers?</b></div>
<span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><span class="im" style="background-color: white;"></span><b style="background-color: white;">Write. </b><span style="background-color: white;">Keep going and just write. It's a muscle that you build the more that you do it, so exercise that muscle. And let your first draft suck. It's a common bit of advice you hear, but that's because it's true. Write when you're writing the story, and leave the editing for after you're done.</span><br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-5768184059397511552015-01-28T12:41:00.000-05:002015-01-28T12:41:47.496-05:00[REVIEW REQUEST] Wandering Home: A Review of Jeffrey Lockwood's Anomie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhqnAQ5GMSKVxHZQXfL-CcMsSvocP0pKCO0NPTDm2SZnJvHuegD4CK85zMmSiUowM0vzkgYkpxb092eYXG5zfcaMELB5iW1i0jz3rD4WIgQNqPk4CfxmgKqmo3ouVMK8AmubdUsKun53a/s1600/Anomie-front-cover-214x330.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhqnAQ5GMSKVxHZQXfL-CcMsSvocP0pKCO0NPTDm2SZnJvHuegD4CK85zMmSiUowM0vzkgYkpxb092eYXG5zfcaMELB5iW1i0jz3rD4WIgQNqPk4CfxmgKqmo3ouVMK8AmubdUsKun53a/s1600/Anomie-front-cover-214x330.jpg" height="320" width="207" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Title:</b> <i>Anomie</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Author:</b> Jeffrey Lockwood</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Edition:</b> Harvard Square Editions (eGalley, 2014)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Pages: </b>149</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>How I Came By This Book:</b> The author sent me a copy of this novel for me to read and review.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>About the Author:</b> Jeffrey Lockwood hails from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but has lived internationally for many years. Presently he writes in Inner Mongolia. <i>Anomie</i> is his first novel. (from Harvard Square Editions) Please <a href="http://harvardsquareeditions.org/portfolio-items/4146/" target="_blank">visit this page to pre-order the novel</a>, which comes out on June 6, 2015.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Synopsis:</b> <i>Anomie</i><span style="background-color: white;"> is a uniquely crafted story about Michael, a middle-aged professor and writer. After a series of tragic events, he seeks closure through myriad experiences, in order to bring balance to his world. Eventually, he finds himself in China.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Review:</b> When I was an undergrad, I went through a LOT of uncertainty about what I wanted to do. In the four years leading up to my B.A., I changed my major and minor 10 times! I applied to college as an English major, switched to Sociology before even getting there in the fall, added a French major, changed from Sociology to Anthropology, dropped my French major, added a History major, added a Multicultural Studies minor, dropped my Multicultural Studies minor, made History my primary major and Anthropology my secondary major, and, finally, dropped my Anthropology major down to a minor. Thankfully I stayed within the same sort of fields--humanities and social sciences--so that I didn't have trouble graduating on time. When Mr. Lockwood approached me about reviewing his novel, <i>Anomie</i>, my mind was drawn back in time to my first semester of college, when I took Intro to Sociology and first learned what the term anomie meant.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anomie is a state of being in which a person finds him/herself in a situation that is jarringly unfamiliar and uncomfortable--often to the point of depression, anxiety, even, suicide. The most illustrative examples of anomie that I can think of are Antonia's father in Willa Cather's <i>My Antonia</i> (who, spoiler alert, commits suicide after not being able to transition from a well-known and successful tailor/violinist in their native country to the nobody-ness of being an immigrant in the midwestern United States) and stories of homeless individuals who are suddenly given gobs of money (think in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range) by people who think that shoving cash at someone helps without stopping to give that person time to ease into a well-to-do lifestyle. There are, of course, countless other examples that don't have a single thing to do with money or station in life. In general, anomie is often a crushing state to find yourself in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is where Michael comes in. After a tragic event leaves him reeling and broken inside, Michael's life starts to careen out of control and he finds himself longing for a fresh start. After a chance encounter with a former student of his, he decides that he's going to go teach English in China. What follows is a personal journey--physical, mental, emotional--that will eventually lead Michael to where he truly belongs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Anomie</i> is a book that draws you in from the first page. The author chooses to start the reader off in the middle of events and work semi-backwards to figure out what led Michael to China in the first place before moving into the present and the future. It's a genius way to begin a book in which the main character is trying to find his way toward understanding who he is and what he wants out of life. The reader is taken on his journey with him, given information in bits and pieces until the whole picture becomes clear. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn't find Michael to be an incredibly sympathetic character--in fact, he was kind of a jerk. But I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. Michael is a work-in-progress, a man lost without his wife and trying to put his life back together in a foreign country. He's not a perfect person by any means, but he grows as the story continues to its conclusion. Along the way, he meets several possible surrogates for his wife, Helene--Geri, Li Qin, and the unforgettable Avery--none of whom actually fit the bill because of the perfected picture he has of her. It is only when Michael lets go of what his mother, Maud, wanted him to be and becomes what his father, Frenchie, knew him to be, that he finds real happiness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The writing style Lockwood uses is unique. With dialogue kept to only what's actually needed to move the story along, he instead depends upon Michael's thoughts and feelings to build the narrative--even though the book is written in third-person. The book is divided into two parts, one being his life in China and the events that led to it, the other being his life after China. I felt as if the first part of the book was much stronger than the second. It seemed that, oddly enough, Michael's story was more put together during the chaos of trying to find himself than in the light of eventually getting his act together. The whole second part just felt rushed. Other than that, however, I really enjoyed this book. And, despite being rushed, where Michael's life ends up is perfect and unexpected. While a bit of a bittersweet story overall, the reader can truly see that Michael's life is going to start going much better for him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The women in <i>Anomie</i> are a bit flat, even Avery, who I really liked. Even most of the male secondary characters aren't very flushed out, although Loch and Serge are likable. As this is Lockwood's first novel, I didn't expect perfection. And with how beautifully he writes and how raw his stories are, I'm really looking forward to what else he might produce in the future. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm giving <i>Anomie</i> 3.5 Gabriels, but could definitely see Lockwood's future novels earning 4 or, even, 5.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">-Gabe</span></div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-51989851713242566802015-01-27T22:30:00.000-05:002015-01-27T22:30:41.109-05:00Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Would Love to Read with a Book Club (If I Had a Book Club)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I really need to find a book club at some point, but I haven't gotten around to it for some reason. There are tons of them in my area, so that isn't the problem. I think I'm just kind of picky and worry that I'll hate the books or the people. If I did have a book club, however, I'd want it to be a new and different type--reading horror or something instead of bestsellers. In fact, I think that's what I'll do. In the few years since I last blogged, I've become something of a horror fan and would love to have a group of people to discuss spooky reads with.<br />
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This week's <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/2015/01/top-ten-books-jamie-would-want-to-read.html" target="_blank">Top Ten Tuesday</a> topic:<br />
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<b>Top <strike>Ten</strike> Six Books I Would Love to Read with My (Non-existent) Horror Book Club</b><br />
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1) <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</i> by Shirley Jackson: I LOVED <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-exactly-waterfront-property-review.html" target="_blank">The Haunting of Hill House</a> </i>and have heard that this one is even better.<br />
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2) <i>John Dies at the End</i> by David Wong: I started reading this a while back and was really enjoying it, but life intervened. Having other people to read it with would be fun because it would be interesting to see everyone's reactions to the zany horror of this novel.<br />
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3, 4, & 5) <i>The Passage, </i><i>The Twelve</i>, and<i> The City of Mirrors</i> by Justin Cronin: I've already read <i>The Passage</i> and <i>City of Mirrors</i> isn't going to be out until October of this year, but I think that reading the whole trilogy in one bite with a group of people would be awesome.<br />
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6) <i>Eyes to See</i> by Joseph Nassise: I bought this book in December of 2012 when I was still working at that seasonal bargain bookstore and I <i>still </i>haven't read it.<br />
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Okay, so there's only six. I really need to look and find more horror titles to put on a to-read list.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-41839481706079260262015-01-26T11:59:00.002-05:002015-01-26T11:59:16.552-05:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every Monday, Sheila at <a href="http://bookjourney.net/" target="_blank">Book Journey</a> hosts It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Book bloggers are encouraged to share their past, current, and future reads, as well as what's been going on at their blog in the past week.<br />
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This past week on Gabriel Reads has been pretty busy, on the blog as well as in real life. I missed two posts last week (sorry to Jeffrey Lockwood--I'm reading your book, I just haven't finished it yet), but otherwise it was a very productive seven days.<br />
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<b>What I Read Last Week:</b><br />
-<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/seeking-yourself-searching-for-signs.html" target="_blank">Rain Dragon</a></i> by Jon Raymond<br />
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<b>What I'm Currently Reading:</b><br />
-<i>Anomie</i> by Jeffrey Lockwood<br />
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<b>What I'm Reading Next:</b><br />
-<i>Witchcraft Couture</i> by Katarina West<br />
-<i>Goodhouse</i> by Peyton Marshall<br />
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<b>The Week In Review:</b><br />
Last week started as every week will start: <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/every-monday-sheila-at-book-journey-its.html" target="_blank">It's Monday! What Are You Reading?</a> On Tuesday, I posted a list of ten of my goals for the year via <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/top-ten-tuesday-top-ten.html" target="_blank">Top Ten Tuesday</a>. I missed Wednesday, but on Thursday I <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-which-i-recommend-some-books-that-im.html" target="_blank">recommended a ton of books</a> that I think you should all read. Friday was a <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/seeking-yourself-searching-for-signs.html" target="_blank">review of Jon Raymond's </a><i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/seeking-yourself-searching-for-signs.html" target="_blank">Rain Dragon</a>. </i>Finally, on Saturday I posted <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/interview-with-katherine-mcintyre.html" target="_blank">my interview with Katherine McIntyre</a>.<br />
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<b>What to Look for This Week:</b><br />
This week will see me introducing two new features to Gabriel Reads: the Gabriel Seal of Approval and the Blog of the Week. I'll also be doing a Top Ten Tuesday post, a review of <i>Anomie</i>, an interview with my author husband, and a review of <i>Witchcraft Couture</i>. There's an open day or two this week, so I'm currently working out what to do for those posts.<br />
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Have a great week everyone!<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-484037961723973232015-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-24T08:00:00.741-05:00Interview with Katherine McIntyre<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On Sunday I posted a <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-request-kicking-ass-and-taking.html" target="_blank">review</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/PixieRants" target="_blank">Katherine McIntyre</a>'s awesome novel, <i><a href="http://katherine-mcintyre.com/books-2/snatched/" target="_blank">Snatched</a>. </i>Katherine was nice enough to agree to an interview as well, which I'm posting today. I really enjoyed reading her answers and I hope that you will, too! Visit her <a href="http://katherine-mcintyre.com/" target="_blank">website</a> for more information about the things you read about here.</span><br />
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Where did the idea for <i>Snatched</i> come from? What inspired the shifters?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve always loved dystopian and survivalist stories, but the idea for Snatched wasn’t straightforward. Part of the concept came from a setting I’d played around with—of folks going back to herbalism in the future. Of course, I was attracted to that since I’ve worked with herbs for a long time, and have a veritable storehouse in the side room of my house. But the shifters were inspired by genetic mutations caused by long-term effects of bad medications. I love the post-apocalyptic settings that are mankind’s folly, and this was one of them, stemming from man’s reliance on modern medicine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">I was really intrigued by the religion of the tunnelers. Can you explain how that works and where it came from? Was it something that had happened before the Rift or because of it?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The religion was something that rose post-Rift. A lot of conventional religions fell after that time, and as part of a society that had returned to more primitive forms of medicine and practice, an earth-based religion flourished with concepts closer to Wicca and other Pagan religions. It draws a little bit of shamanism with totem gods, but also encompasses a Great Spirit, which is sort of like the Wicca Goddess. Since practitioners of Pagan religions tend to gravitate towards herbalism and have a greater knowledge of their use, aspects of those religions took root the strongest, and in a lot of situations, healers and priestesses are one in the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">There’s a bit of a love square going on in the book amongst Kara, Hunter, Dinah, and Jared, but it takes a back seat to the rest of the action. What made you decide to focus on Kara’s struggle rather than on her love life, unlike other books featuring characters on the cusp of adulthood?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think all writers have a subconscious agenda—some way that their strong moral beliefs leak into their writing, whether they intend to or not. One thing that drives me nuts in a lot of books is how immediate issues will take a backseat to some love drama. While I like me a good romance, and enjoy writing them from time to time, there’s a time and a place. In so many stories, women are defined by men. She can’t live without him, or she can’t save herself—but that’s never the heroine I wanted as a kid. My favorites were Princess Cimorene from Patricia Wrede’s books, or Alanna, from Tamora Pierce’s Lioness Quartet. I’ve always loved the ladies that show just how complex and tough women can be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">Tweak is such a great character and she has a unique voice and personality. Was she inspired by someone?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ha, Tweak was my husband’s favorite character. So, she just kind of clicked for me from the start, but if I could relate her to anyone from anything, she’s got a similar bluntness to Anya from Buffy. She speaks a bit more broken English and is way twitchier, but she’s not used to politeness, or tunneler customs, and tends to just blurt things out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">Who is your favorite character in <i>Snatched</i>? Who is your <i>least</i> favorite character?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My favorite character was Tweak. While I love Kara and empathize with her big sister sense of responsibility a ton, I had so much fun writing scenes with Tweak. My least favorite character at first was Dinah, because in the early drafts, she really didn’t have much personality. That changed though, and the way she handled her hardships really helped me admire her. Out of the main cast, I think my least favorite is Jared—he’s a little too vanilla for me, even though I still love his loyalty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">What did you find most difficult about writing this novel?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The ending. I actually originally wrote a whole different ending to it which I scrapped. I changed it around the middle section, took it in the Europa’s Nest direction and went from there. The original ending was weird, and sort of repetitive. They broke into places to save people twice in a row and realized that wouldn’t work. Actually, the first version of this didn’t have Tweak!! It had some other characters that didn’t hold a candle to her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">Have we seen the last of Kara Orris or does she have other adventures waiting for her?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think we have seen the last of Kara Orris, but not of characters like her. One of the most important things to me in fiction is making sure women have realistic, dimensional characters to relate to as well as guys. I get a little tired of the helpless woman and domineering man clichés!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">As a follow-up to that question, whether or not a sequel is in the cards, I’m curious as to what happens to the characters. Without spoiling the ending, of course, what can you tell us about the future of Kara and her friends?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think Snatched will stay a one shot, but I did play around with what would happen to them. There are a LOT of complexities to the shifters that I never went into, one of which is how they reproduce—they’re pretty chilling antagonists. Kara and her friends are a plucky lot though. Chances are, they’ll survive and keep fighting for a better future!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">Do you have any strange writing habits or rituals?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I do the normal thing when I sit down and write—put on a soundtrack, which I actually customize based on each story. However, I do think I’m a little weird with assigning zodiac signs to each of the characters. I’m obsessed with astrology though and it actually helps me expand on the characters and how they’d react in certain situations. So, for example, Kara is a Sagittarius—she’s able to detach, she’s pretty blunt, but I think she’d have a Capricorn moon or something, because she’s kind of unyielding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">You’ve called yourself a modern day Renaissance-woman and you have the list of hobbies and interests to back that up. How did you get involved in things like soapmaking and beer brewing? And would you talk a bit about Solstice Brews?</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I have this problem of always wanting to learn something new. With cooking, I enjoy making things from scratch, and I got curious about beauty care from scratch which is what led to the soapmaking. My studies in herbalism kind of bled into the beer brewing thing, because I love a good beer, and while some places like Dogfish Head utilize herbs creatively in beer, there were so many combinations I wanted to try. Which is what finally led to <a href="http://www.solstice-brews.com/" target="_blank">Solstice Brews</a>, my tea blending business! I absolutely love coming up with new blends of tea—it’s an addiction. Most recently, I’m excited to say I came up with a branch of Novel-Teas which are blends I based off of each of my books. The Snatched one is an Oolong with blueberry and lemongrass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">You have several projects in the works, including an audio book version of your novel, <i><a href="http://katherine-mcintyre.com/books-2/poisoned-apple/" target="_blank">Poisoned Apple</a></i>. What are you currently working on right now and what can you tell the readers about <i>Stolen Petals</i>, which is coming out </span></b><b><span style="color: black;"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1935160777" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">April 24</span></span></span></b><b><span style="color: black;">? (I’ll include links to your blog posts about these things if you’re okay with that.)</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, right now I’m back in the realm of dystopian sci-fi, but this time with pirates. I’m just a wee bit obsessed with pirates, and I absolutely can’t wait to finish the edits on my manuscript for Red Skies Take Warning—it has all the snarky banter, huge adventures, and of course, epic speeches a girl could dream of!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As for novellas on the horizon, get ready to binge on romance! I’ve got Stolen Petals coming out with Breathless Press, a steampunk romance about two rival bounty hunters—lots of sass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And Soul Solution was recently picked up by Decadent Publishing, an urban fantasy about a soul collector who meets the perfect woman, yet they can’t be together, because his touch kills.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Finally, any advice to potential writers (or soapmakers) who may read this post?</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">It’s been said a million times before, but don’t give up. Those first stories may be terrible, and may never see the light of day (my first three or four manuscripts were), but with each one, you learn. If you’re open to learning, the possibilities are endless for you, but that takes time to build. People go into this business with an ego, and I get it—it’s terrifying to put your work out there, especially after the long hours you put into it. However, that ego is only going to inhibit you in the long run and keep you from becoming better. When I get a couple beta readers telling me that something isn’t working, you bet I look at it and see what the problem is. Writers are people, and people are imperfect. The hurt of criticism, or a mean review, whatever—it can be overcome. If you never try and instead give up, you risk losing something greater, because being able to share your worlds and your experiences with other people through story is worth every ounce of the struggle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A big thank you to Katherine McIntyre for being awesome. :D</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">-Gabe</span><br />
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gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-88360675891956903432015-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-23T08:00:01.222-05:00Seeking Yourself, Searching for Signs: A Review of Jon Raymond's Rain Dragon<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>Title:</b><i><b> </b>Rain Dragon</i></div>
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<b>Author:</b> Jon Raymond</div>
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<b>Edition:</b> Bloomsbury (Paperback, 2012)</div>
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<b>Pages:</b> 260</div>
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<b>How I Came By This Book:</b> The title caught my eye while I was browsing the shelves at my local library.</div>
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<b>About the Author:</b> Jon Raymond is the author of the novel <i>The Half-Life</i>, a <i>Publishers Weekly </i>Best Book of 2004, and the short-story collection <i>Livability</i>, winner of the 2009 Ken Kesey Award for Fiction. He is the writer of several films, including <i>Wendy and Lucy</i> and <i>Meek's Cutoff</i>, and co-writer of the Emmy-nominated screenplay for the HBO miniseries <i>Mildred Pierce</i>. Raymond's writing has appeared in <i>Bookforum</i>, <i>Artforum</i>, <i>Tin House</i>, the <i>Village Voice</i>, and other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family.</div>
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Damon and his girlfriend, Amy, have had enough of Los Angeles. Dreaming of a simpler life, they leave the city to find work on an organic farm. But they've scarcely arrived when their vague hopes start to come unraveled: What are they really doing there? Who are their friends? Are they truly testing themselves, or are they just chasing an impossible fantasy?</div>
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By degrees, the realize that their dreams are not the same. For Damon, a career in brand development unfolds almost effortlessly, while for Amy, the menial labor of the farm leads to a satisfying but difficult new path. As the rift deepens, they are forced to evaluate fundamental questions of identity and fate, ambition and betrayal, work and love.</div>
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This novel is a fresh, searching story about how we construct a sense of destiny in our own lives--the strange signs we cling to for guidance and the major events we often understand only in retrospect. </div>
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<b>Review: </b>I'm going to make a confession: I'm one of those people who is constantly trying to figure out who they are. What do I want to do with my life? What do I value? Why don't I spend more time volunteering? Why the hell can't I just go vegan and stay vegan? These are all questions that I grapple with all the time, much to the annoyance of my poor, wonderful husband, who just wishes that I would stop worrying and start living my life. But as an anxious woman who is unsatisfied with her lack of career, I find that defining myself is difficult. Which is why I think this novel really resonated with me.</div>
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<i>Rain Dragon</i> is the story of a young couple, Damon and Amy, who are seeking a better, more satisfying way of life. Told from Damon's perspective, the book follows their arrival at an organic farm called Rain Dragon, and their attempts at finding their niche there. In the meantime, the trouble they've been having with their relationship--which they had been hoping to leave behind in L.A.--follows them to Oregon. Damon finds himself trying to win back Amy while simultaneously trying to give her the space that she needs. Along the way, the couple learns things about themselves and each other that they never expected.</div>
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Raymond's novel is sparse and selective--in a good way. The reader only sees the important things that are happening; there's no wasting time on unnecessary descriptions or side plots. Time moves along quickly, following the seasons for a whole year. The narrative will jump a few days or weeks and there is no need for the author to fill in the blanks. If the reader needs to know something, he or she is told and only when the information is relevant. In this way, it is as if we are watching the highlight reel of a man's life, the way that we often look at our own lives and memories. I'm sure that this is on purpose--in a book about looking for signs and searching for answers, it would make sense that only the noteworthy things would stand out. Thinking about how I am when I'm trying to wrangle with something that's happened, I pick and choose what I think is significant, just as Damon does. It's why both he and the reader are blindsided in the end. We don't see it coming because we're interpreting the events of the book the way we <i>think</i> things should be, rather than how they are.</div>
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The characters in <i>Rain Dragon</i> are also crafted in such a way as to mimic the selectivity of a person's mind. Amy is the most important person in Damon's life, so only she--and, later on, his boss, Peter--is fully explored. The other people who work at Rain Dragon--Jaeha, Linda, Michael, Emilio--are all on the periphery. Damon is more focused on himself and his relationship with Amy, so everyone else is relegated to the background. By the time the novel ends, the reader realizes that what he or she has just read isn't really a novel, but, instead, an exploration of the way that a person's wants and desires can cloud the way the see the world. </div>
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Beautifully descriptive and bitingly honest, Raymond is a skilled writer who has the distinction of having penned the most brilliant passage I've read in a very long time:</div>
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"It's all faking it, anyway," [Peter] said, standing before us for one of his frequent pep talks. "If you think anyone out there's not imitating their dad, their friends, their president, their movie stars, you're fucking fooling yourselves. You're making yourself feel like shit for no reason. Look inside. You know your ideas and tastes and opinions all come from somewhere else. You know you pick up something here, you steal something there. Just accept it. You have no Self. God knows, I don't. I'm just a bunch of crap I found. I'm pieces of everyone I've ever met stuck together. But what I have is this: I don't give a fuck. I embrace it. I steal from everyone and I pretend it's mine and I sure as hell don't care if anyone steals from me...."</blockquote>
Ultimately, I was surprised by how much this book sucked me in. It's a simple narrative, with a message that runs much deeper, and I got to a point where I hated to put it down for any reason. I'm giving <i>Rain Dragon</i> 4 out of 5 Gabriels.<br />
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My interview with Katherine McIntyre will be up at 8 a.m. tomorrow.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-8258356370906492762015-01-22T15:04:00.000-05:002015-01-22T15:04:47.224-05:00In Which I Recommend Some Books that I'm Having Trouble ReviewingMy interview with my husband is being postponed due to him having a busy week at work. I'm going to post it next Thursday instead.<br />
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I read several amazing books in the past year, one of which I was supposed to post a review for yesterday. But as I tried to write said review, I found that I was having difficulty figuring out what to say simply because it had been a while since I'd read it. I LOVED the book, but I couldn't adequately express why without a reread. I didn't want to just write a mundane review that could be about any book: I wanted to do the book justice.<br />
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So, given that I don't have time for a reread right now, I'm going to recommend the books instead of reviewing them. I'll provide a synopsis, as well as a link to Amazon. In no particular order, here are some amazing books you should all check out.<br />
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<i>The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic</i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/EmilyCroyBarker" target="_blank">Emily Croy Barker</a><br />
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Synopsis: Nora Fischer's dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend's wedding, Nora gets lost and somehow walks through a portal into a different world, with only her copy of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> in her back pocket. There, she meets glamorous, charming Ilissa, who introduces here to a new world of decadence and riches. Nora herself feels different: more attractive; more popular. Soon, her romance with the gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It's almost too good to be true.<br />
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Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora's new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally--and a reluctant one at that--is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Arundiel's student--and learning real magic herself--to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her "real life" against the dangerous power of love and magic.</div>
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With an appealing protagonist, cinematic storytelling, and a rich vein of wry humor, Emily Croy Barker's debut offers an intelligent escape into a richly imagined world. <i>The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic</i> is proof that magic not only exists, but--like love--can sweep you off your feet when you least expect it.<br />
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<i>The Silent History </i>by Eli Horowitz, Kevin Moffet, and Matthew Derby<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Synopsis: A generation of children forced to live without words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It begins as a statistical oddity: a spike in children born with acute speech delays. Physically normal in every way, these children never speak and do not respond to speech; they don't learn to read, don't learn to write. As the number of cases grows to an epidemic level, theories spread. Maybe it's related to a popular antidepressant; maybe it's environmental. Or maybe these children have special skills all their own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Silent History</i> unfolds in a series of brief testimonials from parents, teachers, friends, doctors, cult leaders, profiteers, and impostors (everyone except, of course, the children themselves), documenting the growth of the so-called silent community into an elusive, enigmatic force in itself—alluring to some, threatening to others. Both a bold storytelling experiment and a propulsive reading experience, Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby, and Kevin Moffett's <i>The Silent History </i>is at once thrilling, timely, and timeless.</span></div>
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<i>The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish</i> by Allan Stratton<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the Great Depression and Mary Mabel McTavish is suicidal. A drudge at the Bentwhistle Academy for Young Ladies (aka Wealthy Juvenile Delinquents), she is at London General Hospital when little Timmy Beeford is carried into emergency and pronounced dead. He was electrocuted at an evangelical road show when the metal cross on top of the revival tent was struck by lightning. Believing she’s guided by her late mother, Mary Mabel lays on hands. Timmy promptly returns to life.<br /><br />William Randolph Hearst gets wind of the story and soon the Miracle Maid is rocketing from the Canadian backwoods to ’30s Hollywood. Jack Warner, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Rockettes round out a cast of Ponzi promoters, Bolshevik hoboes, and double-dealing social climbers in a fast-paced tale that satirizes the religious right, media manipulation, celebrity, and greed.</span></div>
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<i>Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex</i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/mary_roach" target="_blank">Mary Roach</a></div>
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Synopsis: <span style="color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better - has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Mary Roach, "the funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of 'The New Yorker'), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women or, for that matter, pandas? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">In 'Bonk', Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place. </span></span><div>
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<i>Alias Hook</i> by Lisa Jensen</div>
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Synopsis: <span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It's my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with that infernal, eternal boy."</span></span></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Meet Captain James Benjamin Hook, a witty, educated Restoration-era privateer cursed to play villain to a pack of malicious little boys in a pointless war that never ends. But everything changes when Stella Parrish, a forbidden grown woman, dreams her way to the Neverland in defiance of Pan’s rules. From the glamour of the Fairy Revels, to the secret ceremonies of the First Tribes, to the mysterious underwater temple beneath the Mermaid Lagoon, the magical forces of the Neverland open up for Stella as they never have for Hook. And in the pirate captain himself, she begins to see someone far more complex than the storybook villain. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">With Stella’s knowledge of folk and fairy tales, she might be Hook’s last chance for redemption and release if they can break his curse before Pan and his warrior boys hunt her down and drag Hook back to their neverending game. </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Alias Hook </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">by Lisa Jensen is a beautifully and romantically written adult fairy tale.</span></span></div>
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<i>December Park</i> by Ronald Malfi</div>
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Synopsis: <span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the quiet suburb of Harting Farms, the weekly crime blotter usually consists of graffiti or the occasional bout of mailbox baseball. But in the fall of 1993, children begin vanishing and one is found dead. Newspapers call him the Piper because he has come to take the children away. But there are darker names for him, too . . .</span></span></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Vowing to stop the Piper’s reign of terror, five boys take up the search. Their teenage pledge turns into a journey of self-discovery . . . and a journey into the darkness of their own hometown. On the twilit streets of Harting Farms, everyone is a suspect. And any of the boys might be the Piper’s next victim.</span></span></div>
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<i>The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry </i>by <a href="https://twitter.com/gabriellezevin" target="_blank">Gabrielle Zevin</a></div>
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Synopsis: <span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the faded Island Books sign hanging over the porch of the Victorian cottage is the motto "No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World." A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner, is about to discover just what that truly means.</span></span></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island-from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who's always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.'s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It's a small package, but large in weight. It's that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn't take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.'s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn't see coming. As surprising as it is moving, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"> is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.</span></span></div>
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<i>The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller</i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaneSKuhn" target="_blank">Shane Kuhn</a></div>
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Synopsis: <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Interns are invisible. That’s the mantra behind HR, Inc., an elite "placement agency" that doubles as a network of assassins-for-hire, taking down high-profile executives who wouldn't be able to remember an intern’s name if their lives depended on it.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">At the ripe old age of twenty-five, John Lago is already New York City’s most successful hit man. He’s also an intern at a prestigious Manhattan law firm, clocking eighty hours a week getting coffee, answering phones, and doing all the grunt work no one else wants to do. But he isn't trying to claw his way to the top of the corporate food chain. He was hired to assassinate one of the firm’s heavily guarded partners. His internship is the perfect cover, enabling him to gather intel and gain access in order to pull off a clean, untraceable hit.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The Intern’s Handbook is John Lago's unofficial survival guide for new recruits at HR, Inc. (Rule #4: "Learn how to make the perfect cup of coffee: you make an exec the best coffee he’s ever had, and he will make sure you’re at his desk every morning for a repeat performance. That’s repetitive exposure, which begets access and trust. 44% of my kills came from my superior coffee-making abilities.")</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Part confessional, part how-to, the handbook chronicles John’s final assignment, a twisted thrill ride in which he is pitted against the toughest—and sexiest—adversary he’s ever faced: Alice, an FBI agent assigned to take down the same law partner he’s been assigned to kill.</span></span><div>
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<i>The White Magic Five and Dime</i> by Steve Hockensmith</div>
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Synopsis: <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Much to Alanis McLachlan's surprise, her estranged con-woman mother has left her an inheritance: The White Magic Five & Dime, a shop in tiny Berdache, Arizona. Reluctantly traveling to Berdache to claim her new property, Alanis decides to stay and pick up her mother's tarot business in an attempt to find out how she died.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">With help from a hunky cop and her mother's live-in teenage apprentice, Alanis begins faking her way through tarot readings in order to win the confidence of her mother's clients. But the more she uses the tarot deck, the more Alanis begins to find real meaning in the cards ... and the secrets surrounding her mother's demise.</span></span><div>
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<i>Wild </i>by Cheryl Strayed</div>
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Synopsis: <span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.</span></span></div>
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Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Wild</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.</span></span></div>
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<i>Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened </i>by Allie Brosh</div>
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Synopsis: <span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:</span></span></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Pictures</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Words</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Stories about things that happened to me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Stories about things that happened to other people because of me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Eight billion dollars*</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Stories about dogs</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The secret to eternal happiness*</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">_______________________</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">So, there you have it. Now go read these books. Now.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">-Gabe</span></span></div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-56775496423246095452015-01-20T15:49:00.000-05:002015-01-20T15:49:55.890-05:00Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Goals/Resolutions For 2015 -- bookish, blogging or otherwise!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's Tuesday and that means that it's time for Top Ten Tuesday, my all-time favorite blog feature. Thanks to the girls at <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and The Bookish</a> for hosting this week after week. When I came back to blogging and saw that it was still going, I practically squealed with joy. This week is a freebie week, so I decided to do a list topic that was posted just before I started blogging again.<br />
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<b>This Week's Topic</b>: Top Ten Goals/Resolutions For 2015<br />
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1) My first goal is, of course, related to this blog. By this time next year, I would like to have posted for a full year. I don't have to put something up every day, but that doesn't mean I can't aim for that.<br />
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2) I am morbidly obese (260ish lbs at 4'11") and am actively trying to change that fact. Another of my goals for this year is to lose at least 50 lbs. (More would obviously be better.)<br />
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3) I would like to get at least 10,000 unique hits to this blog every month.<br />
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4) I have set a goal for myself of reading 100 books this year.<br />
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5) I am currently on the lookout for a better job, so that also ranks high on my list of goals.<br />
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6) I have become obsessed with creative journaling and am almost to the end of my second journal. I would like to fill up at least two more this year.<br />
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7) I'd like to become more involved in the book blogging community, perhaps even going to the BEA conference.<br />
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8) I want to start meditating at least a few times a week.<br />
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9) Since December 26th, I have walked over 50 miles. I would like to have walked at least 500 miles by December 31st of this year.<br />
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10) Stop ordering Chinese food so often.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-91581608036040106152015-01-19T12:52:00.001-05:002015-01-19T12:53:28.895-05:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every Monday, Sheila at <a href="http://bookjourney.net/">Book Journey</a> hosts <a href="http://bookjourney.net/2015/01/18/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-270/">It's Monday! What Are You Reading?</a>, where bloggers can share what books they've been burying their faces in and other things that have been happening over the last week.<br />
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This past week was my first week being back to blogging in 2 years, and I have to say that it was a pretty great week. This week is shaping up to be pretty great, too, so I'll preview what's going on in the next seven days as well as sharing what happened in the previous seven.<br />
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<b>What I Read Last Week:</b><br />
*<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/no-one-gets-cupcake-review-of-jay.html">Channel Blue</a></i> by Jay Martel<br />
*<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-request-kicking-ass-and-taking.html">Snatched</a> </i>by Katherine McIntyre<br />
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<b>What I'm Currently Reading:</b><br />
*<i>Rain Dragon </i>by Jon Raymond<br />
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<b>What I'm Reading Next:</b><br />
*<i>Anomie</i> by Jeffrey Lockwood<br />
*<i>Witchcraft Couture</i> by Katarina West<br />
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<b>The Week in Review:</b><br />
Last week I did a few personal posts--<a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-which-i-have-returned-and-have-some.html">what I've been doing for the last few years</a> and a (way overdue) <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-which-my-readers-get-to-know-me.html">getting-to-know-me post</a>--in addition to my reviews of <i>Channel Blue </i>and <i>Snatched</i>. I also wrote <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-which-my-husband-has-written-novel.html">a post shameless plugging my husband's novel, <i>Reckless Magus</i></a>. Finally, I discovered <a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/">Bloglovin'</a> when I took a look at the stats for my blog and saw it as a traffic source.<br />
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<b>What to Look for This Week:</b><br />
Tomorrow is a freebie Top Ten Tuesday post, so I'll be writing about my top ten goals for 2015. Wednesday will be my review of <i>The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic</i> by Emily Croy Baker, which is one of several reviews I'll be posting of books that I read prior to starting this blog back up again. I'll have reviews of <i>Rain Dragon</i> and <i>Anomie</i> as well, Friday and Sunday, respectively. And, most exciting of all, I have not one, but TWO author interviews this week. The first one, on Thursday, is with Donald Schlaich, my husband, author of the aforementioned <i>Reckless Magus. </i>And on Saturday I'll be posting an interview with Katherine McIntyre, the author of <i>Snatched</i>, the first ever winner of the all-new Gabriel Seal of Approval, which will also be introduced in a post this week.<br />
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I'll be popping into other IMWAYR posts today, but feel free to tell me in the comments about what you've been doing the last week.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-82446053194932594632015-01-18T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-18T08:00:01.995-05:00[Review Request] Kicking Ass and Taking Names: A Review of Katherine McIntyre's Snatched<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>Title:</b> <i>Snatched</i></div>
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<b>Author:</b> <a href="https://twitter.com/PixieRants">Katherine McIntyre</a></div>
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<b>Edition:</b> Jupiter Gardens Press (PDF, 2014)</div>
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<b>Pages:</b> 188</div>
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<b>How I Came By This Book:</b> This book was sent to me by the author. </div>
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<b>About the Author:</b> <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">Katherine McIntyre is an author of steampunk adventure, dark comedy, urban fantasy and paranormal romance stories. She splits her time writing and working the day job, but as for creative pursuits, she's dabbled in a little bit of everything. A modern day Renaissance-woman, she's learned soapmaking, beer brewing, tea blending and most recently roasting coffee. The one constant from a very young age was her passion for reading and writing. For more casual content, she’s a regular contributor on CaffeineCrew.com, a geek news website. With more imagination than she knows what to do with, writing proved to be the best outlet. (from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6473654.Katherine_McIntyre">GoodReads</a>) Visit her <a href="http://katherine-mcintyre.com/">website</a> for more information.</span></div>
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<b>Synopsis: </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">When Kara was ten, the shifters took her parents.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">A year ago, they took her best friend Hunter.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And now, the night before her first military strike against those monsters on the surface, the shifters take the only person she has left: her little sister Lizzy.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The snatched don’t come back. That’s what Kara’s believed her entire life, but the first person she finds above ground is the best friend she thought lost forever. Turns out, the higher ups lied. Other colonies are out there, hell even folks who toughed it up above. If anyone knows how to get her sister back, these people would. However, unless she can rally these surfacers into an army, one girl with a shotgun won’t survive long against the very creatures that overturned her world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><b>Review:</b> </span><i style="color: #222222;">Snatched</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> came to me as review request from the author and, the night that she sent me the PDF, I read the first paragraph and went, "Dammit, I can't read this until I finish the book I'm currently on." With a highly-imaginative world; strong, relatable characters; and a huge talent for description, Katherine McIntyre's novel of a young woman trying to save her sister (while dealing with the fact that </span>everything she'd ever known<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> wasn't quite true) is a delightful and terrifying page-turner that will leave you wanting more of Kara Orris.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">From the moment you step into the broken, post-apocalyptic world of <i>Snatched</i>, you leave your world behind, seeing what strong-willed Kara sees, feeling what she feels. McIntyre is a skilled author who delves deeply into the ethos of those who live underground: what they believe, what they value, how they view religion. I was struck by the spiritual aspect of the book and how unique it was compared to other similar novels. The tunnelers talk about the Great Spirit, the Phoenix, the Leviathan. Kara's mother was a shaman who used herbs and made her own incense. It was a refreshing change and one of the reasons I fell in love with this book so soon after starting it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">The characters in <i>Snatched</i> are likable, well-developed, and grow organically with the story. My favorites of these characters are Kara, a 17-year-old girl who has just returned from her first surface mission only to be thrust into a dangerous attack on the horrifying shifters; Jared, the stoic young soldier who has to reconcile what he learns on the surface with what his superiors have led him to believe; and Tweak, the surfacer girl of few words who helps the tunnelers navigate a world they've never known. In one particularly memorable (and genius) scene, the tunnelers encounter rain for the first time and freak the hell out. It was the first time in a while that I'd seen a believable reaction to an unknown stimulus and it really endeared me to the characters. Watching them react to the newness of everything was what made this book far more than just an adventure story.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">All the same, however, it <i>is</i> an adventure--and a thrilling one at that. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">You know how when you watch an action or horror movie and you </span><strike style="color: #222222;">talk</strike><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> yell at the characters or wince when they get hurt, etc? This is the first book I've ever read that made me do that. My husband kept looking over at me and asking if I was all right because I would make noises of surprise or disappointment. One time I let out a big, "OH NO!" and he instantly asked me what was wrong. Of course, then he decided not to let me tell him because he wants to read it, too, so I had no one to share my despair with. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">This book provides an interesting twist on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q">Damsel in Distress trope</a>, with the rescuer being a young woman and the "rescuee" being her younger sister. Watching Kara fight for her family and for what she wants was inspiring, even more so considering that she stayed very focused on her mission and didn't let herself get too embroiled in what could have, in another author's hands, been yet another ridiculous love triangle (or, square, in this case). Instead, Kara keeps her head on straight, her priorities in order, and her hormones in check. She is an exceptional young woman and I would love to see her in another novel in the future. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I don't have many big complaints about the book. In fact, the only bit of constructive criticism I have is that, while McIntyre is great at creating a world and describing it completely and succinctly (no Tolkien-esque, long-winded descriptions in this book), she relies very heavily on similes. After a while, I found them to be a bit too frequent for my tastes. Other than that (and a few minor editing issues), I have nothing but praise for this book. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I'm giving <i>Snatched</i> 5 out of 5 Gabriels AND I'm giving it the (NEW!) Gabriel Seal of Approval for its independent and totally role-model-worthy heroine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">-Gabe</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">PS: Check out my interview with Katherine McIntyre on Saturday, January 24!</span></div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-30900789260918644842015-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-17T08:00:01.794-05:00In Which My Husband Has Written a Novel<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The book above is very near and dear to my heart, but you won't find me writing a review of it. <i>Reckless Magus</i>, the first of many adventures of Abraxus Spellchaser, was published in 2013 by my husband, Donald Schlaich. I don't think that I could give a fair review because of my relationship to the author, but I did want to brag and promote his book like a good <strike>book blogger</strike> wife. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's the synopsis from Amazon:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Abraxas Spellchaser has been a student of magic under his father since his eleventh birthday. Since he began that training, over a decade has passed, and Abraxas, known as Abe to his family and friends, thinks he's ready to take the final test and prove himself to both his father and the magical community that he deserves the title of "Magician," the most skilled of all of those who possess the gift of magic. His father gave him a simple test, walk between the worlds using his magic and return to their home in the Endless City. It's a magic Abe's known and practiced for almost five years. It should be simple. Right up to the point where Abe attempts to open the door between worlds and is knocked out from a strange backlash as he attempts to use his magic. From there, he is drawn into a web of intrigue and a game centuries old as he tries to figure out what is going on and how he can get home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I honestly feel that it's a pretty decent book, but I could be biased. He would really appreciate any and all reviews, good or bad, so if anyone is interested in reviewing the book, let him or I know. The book is available in both print and electronic formats. You can contact him at <a href="mailto:don.schlaich@gmail.com">don.schlaich@gmail.com</a> and, of course, you can always e-mail me at <a href="mailto:gabrielreads@gmail.com">gabrielreads@gmail.com</a>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Don is currently hard at work editing the second novel in this series and will be doing an author interview on this blog next week, Thursday. </span></span></div>
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A review of Katherine McIntyre's <i>Snatched</i> will be up tomorrow at 8 am. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">-Gabe</span></span></div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-86140343730697582322015-01-16T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-16T08:00:03.210-05:00Oops...So, this was supposed to be a review of a book that I read before I started blogging again, but as I was sitting down to put it together, I realized that I needed to refresh my memory on it a bit. Therefore, I'm holding off on the review for a day or so, but it *will* be posted soon.<br />
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To make it up to you, here's an adorable kitten. :D<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-87980570848537673762015-01-15T23:18:00.000-05:002015-01-15T23:18:04.359-05:00Claiming My Blog on Bloglovin<span style="color: #333333; font-family: century gothic, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5143117/?claim=vmv333y4ba8">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: century gothic, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.7999992370605px;">Thanks to one of my followers (I don't know who), I just discovered this site. :D</span></span>gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-14071545595118911052015-01-15T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-15T08:00:03.219-05:00In Which My Readers Get to Know MeSo, as a lot of you who have followed my blog for a while know, I spent a good portion of the time I've worked on it blogging under a male alias. There were various reasons for this, which can be found in <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/09/in-which-i-am-honest-and-reveal.html">this post</a> for those of you who aren't sure what I'm talking about. I feel that, because of this, I haven't been able to be totally open and fully introduce myself to the people who read this blog. So, with that in mind, today I'm going to take the time to do just that.<br />
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So...who is this Gabe person anyway?<br />
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My real name is Jennifer (an all-too-common name in the book blogging world, which is part of why I decided to keep the pen name once I had come clean about being a woman) and I was born in May of 1986 in Pennsylvania with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemangioma">hemangioma</a> over one eye. (I'm linking to the Wikipedia article because the pictures are much less drastic than some of the other sites I found.) It went away as the years went on, but it made me self-conscious for quite a while. Here's me when I was a youngster. You can see the hemangioma over the eye on the left side of the picture.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you look at this picture at a higher resolution, you can see<br />that my teeth look terrifying. Do all children have<br />pirana mouth or was I just unlucky?</td></tr>
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Anywho, my mom and my younger sister and I left Pennsylvania (and my abusive father) and moved to a small town in Western New York right before kindergarten. I spent the next 13 years going to school in a conservative backwoods town, which would prove to be really difficult for liberal, bisexual me. When I was finally able to <strike>escape</strike> graduate, I <strike>fled</strike> went to college in Rochester, where I still live to this day, almost ten years later. </div>
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I majored in history in college, graduating cum laude and moving into a Master's program that was, for all intents and purposes, a backup plan that I would end up really not liking. While in grad school, I started blogging under the name Gabriel James. I liked that much better. :D</div>
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I left my Master's program after two years and continued to work at my college library. During that time, I met my now husband, Don, and we quickly moved in together. As <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/in-which-i-have-returned-and-have-some.html">Tuesday's post</a> said, we got married in February of 2013 and I left my library job only to find myself floundering for a while before I found safer footing as a tutor. I'm still looking to find my life's calling, which may be library work for all I know, but I love reading and writing, so book blogging is something that I could never leave behind.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don and I at a Fringe Festival event this past year.</td></tr>
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I hate writing about myself, which has always been the case, especially because I never know what to include and what to leave out. If you guys have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them (within reason). </div>
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Here are some other tidbits about me:</div>
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*I am just under 5'0" tall...and yes it sucks.</div>
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*My favorite color is silver.</div>
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*I have named every single one of my pets after fictional characters: Webbigal the cat (Duck Tales), Bartok the hamster (Anastasia), Sydney and Vaughn the fish (Alias), Severus Snape the fish (Harry Potter), Selmak the cat (Stargate SG-1), Teyla the cat (Stargate Atlantis), and Loki the bunny (Norse god and Avenger-botherer). </div>
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*I was engaged once before, right out of high school. Dumb, dumb, dumb.</div>
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*I have an undying love of M*A*S*H.</div>
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*I did the monologue "Reclaiming Cunt" for a production of The Vagina Monologues in college and faked an orgasm on stage in front of hundreds of strangers for three nights in a row. It was amazing.</div>
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*My sister's half-birthday is the day after my birthday and my half-birthday is the day before her birthday.</div>
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*I miss the 90s so much it hurts.</div>
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*I'm a board game addict, especially Dominion.</div>
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*One time I went hiking in a new place all by myself and got so lost that I had to call a friend to come pick me up. I had ended up on the complete opposite side of the park from where I'd started.</div>
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*I'm an atheist with pagan tendencies.</div>
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*I once played a version of live-action Clue with some friends in college. We probably should have used a smaller building.</div>
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*I <i>am </i>the real Slim Shady.</div>
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-Gabe </div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-9997386782884552452015-01-14T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-14T18:20:17.975-05:00"No One Gets the Cupcake": A Review of Jay Martel's Channel Blue<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b>Title:</b> <i>Channel Blue</i><br />
<b>Author:</b> <a href="https://twitter.com/mrjaymartel" target="_blank">Jay Martel</a><br />
<b>Edition:</b> Head of Zeus, Ltd. (Paperback, 2014)<br />
<b>Pages:</b> 374<br />
<b>How I Came By This Book</b>: Sadly, I no longer work in a library, but I still spend inordinate amounts of time in them. This book was found on the New Fiction shelf at my town library.<br />
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<b>About the Author:</b> <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">I'm an executive producer and writer for "Key & Peele," a sketch show on Comedy Central. I've created various TV shows, written screenplays, gardened for Richard Nixon, and was once arrested for confronting Jeb Bush about Florida's death penalty program. I've also written comic pieces for "The New Yorker" and "Rolling Stone." Channel Blue is my first novel. For more info on Channel Blue and my writing, please check out</span><a href="http://facebook.com/authorjaymartel" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">facebook.com/authorjaymartel</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">. (from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7382301.Jay_Martel?from_search=true">GoodReads</a>)</span></div>
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<b>Synopsis:</b> Earth used to be Galaxy Entertainment's most lucrative show. The inhabitants of the Western Galaxy--the savviest, richest demographic in the Milky Way--just couldn't get enough of the day-to-day details of the average Earthling's life.<br />
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But now Channel Blue's ratings are flagging, and its producers are planning a spectacular finale. In just three weeks, their TV show will go out with a bang. The trouble is, so will Earth.<br />
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Only one man can save our planet from total destruction. And he's hardly a hero...<br />
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<b>Review:</b> Perry Bunt is a has-been screenwriter teaching screenwriting at a community college. He's broke, single, and bored, with only masturbation and the sight of his lovely student, Amanda Mundo, to break the monotony of everyday life. What he doesn't know is that he's about to become the most important person in the galaxy. <i>Channel Blue</i> is the story of an everyman thrust into an impossible position: he's the only sane person on Earth who knows that mankind is going to destroy itself in three weeks for the personal entertainment of trillions of viewers, which makes him the only one who can stop it from happening.<br />
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Unbeknownst to the 7 billion people on this planet, we're being watched. A lot. Our whole planet is Channel Blue, a conglomeration of thousands of television stations devoted to broadcasting the daily successes and foibles of humankind. Tuning in every second of the day is the rest of the galaxy, including the Edenites, an advanced form of human that has come to see entertainment as its highest priority. They delight in watching the "Earthles" fight wars, get gravely injured, or just all-around fail at life. And all of this has been happening without our knowledged. In fact, up until Perry Bunt stumbles into the wrong room in Galaxy Entertainment in an attempt to return Amanda Mundo's jacket to her, the only Earthle who knew about Channel Blue was a homeless man named Ralph, who hangs outside a convenience store. Unfortunately, for Perry, this one error in judgment will embroil him in a battle to save the world.<br />
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With ratings dropping, Galaxy Entertainment has decided to cut its losses and let Channel Blue go. In order to go out with a bang, the producers of Channel Blue put a series of events into motion--earthquakes, violence, a foiled airplane crash--that will eventually set off a spark in the Middle East, leading to all-out nuclear annihilation. When Perry discovers that this is the case, he sets out to save the planet by showing the galactic viewers that Earth isn't beyond saving. He becomes determined to prove that Earth isn't all violence and mindless stupidity, but his fellow Earthles don't make it easy for him. Every time he tries to do something nice, it backfires on him: he gets beat up; he inadvertently starts a religion; he gets locked up in a secret government facility and waterboarded.<br />
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As he and Amanda Mundo trip through these events together, their gaffes become a number one hit TV show: <i>Bunt to the Rescue</i>. The more popular the show gets, the crazier life gets for Perry, as the producers at Channel Blue up the stakes in order to up their ratings. In the middle of all of this chaos, Perry discovers a deep, dark secret that changes his view of the world forever. What will happen in the end? Will the Earth be saved? And will Perry survive to complete his mission?<br />
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<i>Channel Blue</i> is a hilarious comedy of errors in which the errors are not just Perry's--they're also our own. Martel satirizes humanity twice--we are both the watched and the watchers. He pokes fun at religion, politics, terrorism, nationalism. He takes swing after swing at our entertainment-obsessed, violent, and self-centered society. It's such a masterful piece of satire, with layer upon layer of scathing criticism veiled with non-stop laughter. The dual-criticism technique was new to me and it was extremely refreshing. In fact, it didn't quite click in my head that Martel is portraying us as the Earthles AND the Edenites until I sat down to write this review.<br />
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The plot is a bit twisty-turny, jerking the reader in a new direction every time it seems he or she has the novel figured out. It kept me guessing straight up to the end of the book, although occasionally I felt like I had whiplash from some of the more drastic plot twists. Martel doesn't make life easy for his poor protagonist, nor does he make it clear to the reader where things are headed. I definitely did not see the book going where it did when I started reading it, which is great. It's very rare that a book surprises me like that.<br />
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The characters are caught up in a whirlwind, which means that their development is very plot driven. Perry and Amanda are obviously the two main characters and therefore are the most developed. But there are several other characters to look out for, including Nick Pythagorus, Amanda's nine-year-old boss, and Noah Overton, Perry's bewildered neighbor, who only wants to make the world a better place. There's even a special guest star. I'll give you a hint: "Thank you. Thank you very much."<br />
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I really liked this book a lot. I would definitely recommend it if you're a fan of <i>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i> or social satire in general. I'm giving <i>Channel Blue</i> 4 out of 5 Gabriels.<br />
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-Gabe</div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-21094087053662765672015-01-13T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-13T08:00:07.388-05:00In Which I Have Returned and Have Some Explaining to DoRight now it's a little before 4:30 in the afternoon on a cold, snowy Monday. I'm sitting in a Starbucks with a venti flat white (my new obsession) and socks so wet that I could probably wring them out. I've had to walk everywhere recently since our car died and today was especially slushy. I should be miserable (and, believe me, my wet socks aren't making me feel particularly comfy), but I'm actually pretty excited. Why? Because I'm blogging again. And, gods, have I missed it.<br />
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The last time you all heard from me was December of 2012. I posted a Top Ten Tuesday list and then vanished. For two whole years. Where did I go? What have I been up to? Gather round, darlings, because it's story time!<br />
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THE ODYSSEY OF GABE<br />
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So, I'm going to preface this by saying that the last few years of my life haven't been all that exciting overall. There were a few high points, obviously, but I'm still broke, underemployed, and dealing with my mental health. But I'm determined to make 2015 the start of a winning streak, so strap in and hold on because I'll be taking you all along for the ride.<br />
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Anyway, I was working crazy hours between the bookstore and the library during December of 2011 and, even though I was reading quite a bit, I just didn't have the mental bandwidth to blog. I kept trying to and just never really got around to it. By the time the bookstore closed (it was a seasonal experiment), I had kind of given up on the idea.<br />
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In February of 2013, I married a wonderful man who reads constantly, writes novels, and puts up with all of the craziness that is being married to me. We got married by a justice of the peace in front of his mom and brother, my mother, my best friend, and two of his best friends. Don and I will be celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary on the 22nd of February and I couldn't be happier.<br />
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<table align="center" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUfI3e8B9VKdV_jYtkyLq_vIUozZc_Z1HdIXGM_sa8cOJDFZbv_NraFy-pFAOmZtSRgx0un25HLh_xP-fdZxKud6U-Tv5FcuUM8AbwMCXheFYy0jQyiJKLul3QYyMA2WqVSrT-KMmOR_b/s1600/858466_10152616037820204_261146288_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTUfI3e8B9VKdV_jYtkyLq_vIUozZc_Z1HdIXGM_sa8cOJDFZbv_NraFy-pFAOmZtSRgx0un25HLh_xP-fdZxKud6U-Tv5FcuUM8AbwMCXheFYy0jQyiJKLul3QYyMA2WqVSrT-KMmOR_b/s1600/858466_10152616037820204_261146288_o.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woah! A photo of Gabe? Holy crap. This is the two of us on<br />our wedding day. My husband has since lost about 50 lbs and<br />looks incredible. See photo below.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
April saw me leaving my library job for a full-time job that I ended up hating and that led to a nervous breakdown. Phone sales is just not the job for me. I struggled to find a new job for a few months, got one that I also hated, left that one after a few months, and then started working two jobs that I absolutely loved.<br />
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Meanwhile, in June I quit smoking cigarettes after being a chimney for almost 9 years! I could breathe and run (I ran!) and felt amazing. I ended up losing about 15 lbs, too, and would have kept going if I hadn't lost my groove and stopped around the end of August. I've since gained that fifteen back (and more besides) and am in the process of getting all of the extra weight off for good.<br />
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Starting in September of 2013, I worked at a craft store--first as a cashier, then as one of the people who goes in in the wee hours of the morning to set up the product--and as a tutor, which I'm still doing. I had very little time to sleep between that September and March of 2014, let alone do much of anything else. So, although I was tempted over and over again to come back to blogging, I really couldn't.<br />
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The lack of sleep, the stress of everyday life, and a million other things led to a bit of an episode and I ended up in a partial hospitalization to deal with my depression, anxiety, and (newly-diagnosed) <a href="http://www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com/">Borderline Personality Disorder</a>. I quit my craft store job and started working on myself, including getting a therapist. I had picked up crochet while working at the craft store and did that quite a lot to help with the healing process. I've gotten significantly better and feel no shame in being open about my mental issues. If I can help even one person by letting them know that they're not alone, I will consider my life a success.<br />
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In October of 2014, my best friend married one of Don's best friends and the two of us performed the ceremony for them. It was a beautiful wedding and they make a beautiful couple. I love knowing that they met at our own wedding, knowing that they're together because of us. I was trying to find a good, not blurry photo of us performing at the ceremony, but there currently aren't any available to me, so I'll just post a photo of my much slimmer and extremely handsome husband instead.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3d-8sW4vgPsMVwlHx_KHhC60SeevAKBy0h2D4cr-99dm4_kDhJE6mTRc_xRO2YN9TWZGMSBfZ6xHHv1PTvzJTOGknr_f7WIkzBY9T2DQhygKU03mre04TT4DjGfvztnSw5J0QS5e5NTqZ/s1600/Don.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3d-8sW4vgPsMVwlHx_KHhC60SeevAKBy0h2D4cr-99dm4_kDhJE6mTRc_xRO2YN9TWZGMSBfZ6xHHv1PTvzJTOGknr_f7WIkzBY9T2DQhygKU03mre04TT4DjGfvztnSw5J0QS5e5NTqZ/s1600/Don.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When we have children, they damn well better get his hair.</td></tr>
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Other than that, the big news is that Don and I adopted a bunny, which we named Loki. He's huge and adorable and we got him the day after Thanksgiving from <a href="http://www.lollypop.org/site/c.clKUI9OQIoJcH/b.6179485/k.BEF3/Home.htm">Lollypop Farm</a>, an amazing organization here in the Rochester area. Here he is eating greens off of a paper towel while our cat looks on skeptically:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja79FTuUH5eoDWb8C3aIZrH0Qw2HY1OfC5N68InZwpi6lvGn9ZetLUeHDrpldBmIJO4VkkA0vJg0UTZD_rV_UrcAtW-9MMtFvWhIUbhXdIX67KeEK7dFaI8xRaySP61etwk3ksrC0GU5jW/s1600/20141206_135103.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja79FTuUH5eoDWb8C3aIZrH0Qw2HY1OfC5N68InZwpi6lvGn9ZetLUeHDrpldBmIJO4VkkA0vJg0UTZD_rV_UrcAtW-9MMtFvWhIUbhXdIX67KeEK7dFaI8xRaySP61etwk3ksrC0GU5jW/s1600/20141206_135103.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Loki and Teyla</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So, that's pretty much it. I decided shortly after the new year started that I was going to get back into blogging and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Running this blog gives me an amazing sense of purpose and is a ton of fun as well. It's a platform for my ideas and a place to express my creativity. And I've missed it so very much.<br />
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As always, I'm an open-book, so feel free to ask questions, either in the comments or at gabrielreads@gmail.com.<br />
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Tomorrow morning my review of <i>Channel Blue </i>will be posted at 8 am EST!<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-85119740949967152162015-01-12T11:33:00.000-05:002015-01-12T11:33:10.159-05:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuZAxHvofSweUZuEZTEyKnOO1ByCy8-DeDPqdnwHfT_rsuJMqWQG41t0Q8KLiUW1Vbb1QAKxv5MIWtcT9ksyDWaLKgpaiTnX9BqlZf4Kx57nJ9xk0DzMSIc22rc426D17FxhI3z9CsIpL/s1600/IMWAYR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuZAxHvofSweUZuEZTEyKnOO1ByCy8-DeDPqdnwHfT_rsuJMqWQG41t0Q8KLiUW1Vbb1QAKxv5MIWtcT9ksyDWaLKgpaiTnX9BqlZf4Kx57nJ9xk0DzMSIc22rc426D17FxhI3z9CsIpL/s1600/IMWAYR.jpg" /></a></div>
Welcome back to Gabriel Reads! What better post to kick off its reemergence than <a href="http://bookjourney.net/2015/01/11/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-269/" target="_blank">It's Monday! What Are You Reading?</a> from Sheila at <a href="http://bookjourney.net/" target="_blank">Book Journey</a>?<br />
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Because this is my first real post of the year (and for the last two years), I'm going to give a preview of what's coming up this week in addition to sharing my recent reads.<br />
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First things first, though: what have I been reading? Honestly, I've only read one book so far--Channel Blue by Jay Martel. The review will be posted on Wednesday morning, but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1781855803/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1781855803&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=JMCOIARK5CB4EOY7">here's a link to its Amazon page</a> so you can check the book out in advance.<br />
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What else is coming up this week? Tomorrow, instead of a Top Ten Tuesday post (which I will start doing again next week), I'll explain where the hell I've been the last two years and what I've been up to. Wednesday is, of course, my first review in a very long time. On Thursday, I'm going to do a bit of a getting-to-know-you post about myself, as I feel like I never really did that before. Friday I'll be reviewing a book that I read before I decided to start blogging again, which will be a pattern for a little while. I read several amazing books in the last year and I want to share them with all of you. On Saturday, I'll be introducing (but not reviewing) a book by someone very near and dear to my heart: my husband. Then on Sunday I'll be reviewing a book I received as a review request.<br />
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Whew! Lots of great stuff coming up. I'm super excited to be back in business and I look forward to making 2015 an amazing year of blogginess.<br />
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How about everyone else? Tell me what you all have been up to!<br />
<br />
-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-65967467172518526142015-01-04T14:14:00.002-05:002015-01-04T14:14:32.168-05:00GABRIEL READS IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!It's a new year and I'm feeling particularly bloggy. Check back within the next few weeks for the first new content on this blog in two years!<br />
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Third time's the charm, guys. For real.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-18282817039456508652012-12-18T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-05T21:24:11.653-05:00Top Ten Tuesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/2012/12/julias-top-ten-new-to-me-authors-of-2012.html" style="color: #ff3300; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;">Top Ten Tuesday</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"> is a weekly feature hosted by the ladies over at </span><a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/" style="color: #ff3300; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;">The Broke and the Bookish</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">. Each week book bloggers are </span><a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html" style="color: #ff3300; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;">given a prompt</a><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"> and asked to answer it in the form of a top ten list. Some weeks I don't feel able to answer the prompt provided and this is one of those weeks. Instead of naming my top ten books read in 2012 (because I've barely read twenty books this year and that's a paltry number from which to choose), I'm going to answer a prompt from October.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back on October 23rd, the Top Ten Tuesday list was "<a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-ten-tuesday_23.html">Top Ten Books to Get into the Halloween Spirit</a>." I hadn't felt able to answer that prompt either, but had promised to make a list of Top Ten Horror Novels Gabe Should Read Before Next Halloween. I had said that I was going to go through the other Top Ten lists as well as taking suggestions in the comments.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then I never did.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, today, I present to you: <b>Top Ten Horror Novels Gabe Should Read Before Next Halloween</b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1) </span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307947300/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307947300&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=K5BP5GFAJNDIDZZ4" target="_blank">The Stand</a> </i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenKing">Stephen King</a>: I picked this novel up off of the Take a Book/Leave a </span>Book shelf<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> at my library a while ago because I had never read a King novel and because I love post-apocalyptic fiction. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143039970/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0143039970&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=V2EC3YXTTELLTXHR">We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=gabrread-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0143039970" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by Shirley Jackson: I vowed to read this after finishing (and loving) Jackson's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-exactly-waterfront-property-review.html">The Haunting of Hill House</a> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">but never did. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312355297/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312355297&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=RXAJTRYNFSGH7SAT" target="_blank">Let the Right One In: A Novel</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by John Ajvide </span>Linqvist<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: Kayleigh of </span><a href="http://kfmurphy.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Nylon Admiral</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> recommended this to me as well as a few other books. I decided to go with this one because I've heard others rave about it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1492176435/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1492176435&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=LT5CQ6PZRXF3OCQL" target="_blank">The Turn of the Screw</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by Henry James: A lot of people have told me about this book </span>so<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> I chose this out of all the picks from </span><a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-ten-books-to-get-into-halloween.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">The Broke and the Bookish's own list</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142422053/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142422053&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=JEVXPIWWUFWPQBLQ" target="_blank">The Name of the Star</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=gabrread-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0142422053" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/maureenjohnson" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Maureen Johnson</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: Found this promising title through </span><a href="http://thethoughtcasters.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-10-books-to-get-in-halloween-spirit.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Thought Casters</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">. I can't pass up a good Jack the Ripper tale.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">6) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765328674/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0765328674&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=NRIR23KT24NPO2IC" target="_blank">Anna Dressed in Blood</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=gabrread-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0765328674" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/KendareBlake" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Kendare Blake</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: Thanks to </span><a href="http://www.tumblingbooks.com/2012/10/23/top-ten-books-to-get-in-the-halloween-spirit/" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Tumbling Books</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> for this recommendation. I had seen it on a few blog </span>lists<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> but I finally decided to check it out after seeing it on her list in particular.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">7) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316081051/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316081051&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=647CL5B5N23F4WH7" target="_blank">Feed</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/seananmcguire" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Mira Grant</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: I like zombie books and I had been trying to remember who wrote this novel because I had wanted to read it for a while. Thanks to </span><a href="http://lifewithnoplot.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/top-ten-tuesday-halloween-edition/" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Life With No Plot</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> for reminding me.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">8) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380729407/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0380729407&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=6DSVGBMER6KX5BKD" target="_blank">Something Wicked This Way Comes</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=gabrread-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0380729407" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by Ray Bradbury: I love Bradbury so this recommendation from </span><a href="http://abookwormbelle.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-ten-tuesday-top-10-books-to-get-you.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">A Bookworm Belle</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> is a no-brainer choice for me.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">9) </span></span></span><i><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345504992/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0345504992&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=6XIY3VYEHB3727Q4" target="_blank">The Twelve</a></u></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"> </span></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/jccronin" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Justin Cronin</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: As I was putting this list together, something kept nagging at the back of my head. I realized that it was the fact that I *still* haven't read the sequel to Justin Cronin's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">The Passage</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">, which I have been dying to dig into. Maybe that will be my Yule present to myself this year.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">10) </span></span></span><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i><u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594746036/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594746036&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=H4SIQ47UQ373C6LQ" target="_blank">Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children</a></u></i></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/ransomriggs" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Ransom Riggs</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">: I saw this on a few blogs but it was the description of it from </span><a href="http://blogoferised.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-ten-tuesday_23.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Ula at Blog of Erised</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> that convinced me that this book should make the list.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And there you have it. Ten scary novels that I intend to read before Halloween of 2013. Thanks to everyone for their awesome lists. And maybe next year when Halloween rolls around again, I'll be able to actually have ten books for a top ten list. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span> <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">-Gabe</span></span></span>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-67902916083228761772012-12-17T11:31:00.003-05:002015-01-05T21:43:40.205-05:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://bookjourney.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/31.jpg?w=658" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://bookjourney.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/31.jpg?w=658" height="193" width="200" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at </span><a href="http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #ff3300; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;">Book Journey</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"> and is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">a chance for book bloggers to share what they read last week, what they are currently reading, and what they are reading next. It's also an opportunity for us to share other things that we did during the week.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've finally got back into blogging after several weeks away and it feels pretty great. I've been focusing on this blog, so the only post that I've written so far for <a href="http://themindofgabe.blogspot.com/">The Mind of Gabe</a> since <a href="http://themindofgabe.blogspot.com/2012/12/depression-is-bitch.html">my post on depression</a> is today's post about <a href="http://themindofgabe.blogspot.com/2012/12/honoring-fallen-of-sandy-hook-elementary.html">the tragedy that occurred in Connecticut on Friday</a>. This blog was hopping last week, with a post everyday except yesterday. Here's what I've been up to this past week.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>What I Read Last Week</b>:</span></span><br />
-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312429835/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312429835&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=TYYYLOJ2EPOC5OC3">No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process</a></i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/ColinBeavan" target="_blank">Colin Beavan</a><br />
-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1909156043/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1909156043&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=TQYE5ZHX7GIKQ2RH">The Lost Button</a></i> by Irene Rozdobudko<br />
<i>-<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1938545133/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1938545133&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=KSVNDNF5RGWP35EG">Background Noise</a></i> by Peter DeMarco<br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>What I'm Reading Now</b>:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-</span><i><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1442200944/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1442200944&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=MIKE5C7BCPQXGQE4">Rich, Free, and Miserable: The Failure of Success in America</a> </span></i><span style="line-height: 20px;">by John Brueggemann</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>What I'm Reading Next</b>:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061898643/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061898643&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=C6AWVS2KAQTZ4LKK">The Language of Trees: A Novel</a></i> by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/IlieRuby" style="line-height: 20px;" target="_blank">Ilie Ruby</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140185852/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140185852&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=ZT26WJXHRZX6V3JC">We</a></i> by Yevgeny Zamyatin</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1849821658/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1849821658&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=5NK4NJWCF7PWRBVD">A Brilliant Novel in the Works</a></i> by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/yuvizalkow" style="line-height: 20px;" target="_blank">Yuvi Zalkow</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385335679/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0385335679&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=BXYN6EDDR37SQELT">Kissing in Manhattan</a></i> by </span><a href="https://twitter.com/davidschickler" style="line-height: 20px;" target="_blank">David Schickler</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>Books Reviewed Last Week</b>:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/dearth-of-news-review-of-tom-rachmans.html">The Imperfectionists</a> </i>by Tom Rachman</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/dude-wheres-that-star-review-of-tristan.html">The Natural Navigator: A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill</a></i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/NaturalNav" target="_blank">Tristan Gooley</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-<i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/gilded-age-20-review-of-chrystia.html">Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else</a></i> by <a href="https://twitter.com/cafreeland" target="_blank">Chrystia Freeland</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><b>Other Posts Last Week</b>:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-"<a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/posing-for-charity.html">Posing for Charity</a>"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">How has the last week been for all of you?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">-Gabe</span></span>gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-5984517998030153092012-12-15T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-05T21:48:58.211-05:00Posing for CharityMy fiancé and I are giant dorks who love to show each other stuff we've found on the internet. Occasionally these things are socially acceptable to share with the masses. The other day Don showed me a post he had found on <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/172490.Jim_C_Hines">Jim C. Hines</a>' <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/blog/">blog</a> that I immediately knew I had to blog about.<br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/jimchines" target="_blank">Hines</a>, a fantasy writer, is raising money for the <a href="http://www.aicardisyndrome.org/site/node/266">Aicardi Syndrome Foundation</a> in a rather unusual way: by taking photographs of himself posing in the ridiculous and hyper-sexualized manner of women on book covers. You can find some of these photos <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/12/poses-round-one/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/01/striking-a-pose/">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/12/pose-off-with-john-scalzi/">here</a> (with special guest poser, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4763.John_Scalzi">John Scalzi</a>). You can also find a post about what we <i>should </i>be laughing about when we see these photos rather than what we <i>might</i> be laughing about <a href="http://www.jimchines.com/2012/12/wait-what-were-we-laughing-at/">here</a>. As Hines himself says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">...<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">if you’re laughing because you’re a straight guy and therefore must declare all male bodies brain-searingly ugly? If you’re laughing because you think a man in a dress is funny and should be mocked? In other words, if you’re laughing because of various aspects of ingrained sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other discriminatory nonsense? Then you’ve missed the point so badly it’s not even funny.</span></span></blockquote>
The point Hines is trying to make is a good one. We as a society tend to laugh at that which we find absurd...and we find the wrong things absurd. The media has shown us images of men in dresses (think <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ZM1MG4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000ZM1MG4&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=SDGUJ4URNIPMU4HF">Tootsie</a></i>, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052BXZIQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0052BXZIQ&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=NDI2ERX5XJSDHLCY">Mrs. Doubtfire</a>, Work It</i>, etc.) and told us to laugh at them. In a world where sexuality and gender expression are a spectrum and in which rigid gender roles are forced on us from birth even if we don't want them to be, the message from the media is that men should wear pants and suits and that only women can wear dresses and skirts and that any man who doesn't fall into those strict guidelines should be laughed at. Our pink/blue dichotomy is impressed upon us even before we're out of the womb and the media does everything in its power to keep us thinking of ourselves in an either/or sense--mostly for the sake of advertising products and measuring demographics, I'm sure.<br />
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Hines is pointing out the absurdity of the aforementioned ridiculous and hyper-sexualized poses that women are portrayed in on book covers. Science fiction and fantasy are ripe with examples of this, but they can be found everywhere. How many times have you seen a man lying across a car in a skimpy bathing suit or lasciviously licking an ice cream cone on a commercial? I'm going to guesstimate here and say the likelihood that you have is around zero.<br />
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<a href="http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/">Escher Girls</a>, a tumblr blog designed to "archive and showcase the prevalence of certain ways women are depicted in illustrated pop media, specifically how women are posed, drawn, distorted, and sexualized out of context, often in ridiculous, impossible or disturbing ways that sacrifice storytelling," explores the issue even further than Hines does by ridiculing and attempting to correct illustrations of women that are featured in comic books, manga, and the like. Both Hines and Escher Girls realize the real thing to be laughed at is the way in which women are portrayed in the media.<br />
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We have sexualized women for ages, demeaning and degrading them and making them out to be objects rather than functioning members of society. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as being strong, rugged, powerful...and irresistible to women. The repercussions of this reverberate throughout the world, leading to rape, abuse, disempowerment, and a feeling that men are the superior sex. Our language further perpetuates this false belief. Someone who is scared or weak is "a pussy." Someone who is bad at pitching is told they "throw like a girl." Women who are strong and in a position of power are frequently portrayed as "bitches" who have slept their way to the top while a man in the same position of power is seen as a driven, hard-working individual who earned his distinction. The gender gap isn't about the differences between men and women; it's an unfortunate byproduct of deeply-held and erroneous cultural attitudes towards women.<br />
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As Hines states, it is not just sexism that is the issue. Homophobia and transphobia are similar cultural issues that need to be dealt with. I am a member of the LGBT community and have faced harassment and ridicule. LGBT friends of mine have had even worse to deal with: violence, discrimination, neglect. They have been disowned by their parents or have at least lived in fear of that happening if their family were to find out. A lot of the problems that the community faces stem from cultural beliefs held about us that are perpetuated by the media and religious groups. There is a good reason why <a href="http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/12/16/work-it-controversy/">GLAAD called ABC out on its show <i>Work It</i></a>: it's yet another attempt by the media to push the "men in dresses are funny" meme. And it's gotten pretty old.<br />
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This honestly started out as a post bringing awareness to Hines' efforts to raise money for a good cause. And I urge you to donate to it, obviously. But what started as a simple "Hey, here's something interesting" post has become a way for me to discuss what I think is a huge problem in our society today: othering. We see the world as "us" and "them." If "they" are different from "us" then we dehumanize them by laughing at them, hurting them, conquering them, trying to keep them from having what we have. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, and the like are all ways of othering, of keeping all the power and money and whatever else we desire away from "them."<br />
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The issue isn't with the people being othered; it is with the people doing the othering. This country (and every other country) needs deep societal change in order to push forward toward equality. The only way that we are going to be able to provide safety, success, and a loving environment for all is to take a look at our prejudices, whether we know we have them or not, and to change ourselves. Our beliefs are not our own--they are influenced by the media, the government, religion, our parents. They are pushed upon us at an early age and it is up to us to break out of them and to start thinking for ourselves. They are socially driven but can be individually altered.<br />
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How are you working towards changing your own beliefs? How are you trying to break out of the social status quo?<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-75111686233554153582012-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-05T21:51:12.649-05:00Gilded Age 2.0: A Review of Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Title: <i>Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else</i><br />
Author: <a href="https://twitter.com/cafreeland" target="_blank">Chrystia Freeland</a><br />
Edition: Penguin Press (Hardcover, 2012)<br />
Pages: 330<br />
How I Came by This Book: This was on the "New Acquisitions" shelf at the library I work at. As income inequality is an issue near and dear to my heart, I obviously had to check it out.<br />
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<b>About the Author</b>: Chrystia Freeland is the digital editor at Thomson Reuters, following years of service at the <i>Financial Times</i> both in New York and in London. She was the deputy editor of Canada's <i>The Globe and Mail</i> and has reported for the <i>Financial Times, The Economist</i>, and <i>The Washington Post.</i> Freeland's last book was <i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0349112606/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0349112606&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=PRG553D2IMBEI43P%22%3ESale%20of%20the%20Century:%20The%20Inside%20Story%20of%20the%20Second%20Russian%20Revolution%3C/a%3E" target="_blank">Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution</a></i>. She lives in New York City.<br />
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<b>Synopsis</b>: There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it <i>means</i> to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but <i>within</i> the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation--as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; <i>Plutocrats</i> proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed.<br />
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What's changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited--amassed by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today's self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, <i>Plutocrats</i> puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.<br />
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The closest mirror to our own time is the late-nineteenth-century Gilded Age--the era of powerful "robber barons" like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Then as now, emerging markets and innovative technologies collided to produce unprecedented wealth for more people than ever in human history. Yet those at the very top benefited far more than others--and from this pinnacle they exercised immense and unchecked power in their countries. Today's closest analogue to these robber barons can be found in the turbulent economies of India, Brazil, and China, all home to ferocious market competition and political turmoil. But wealth, corruption, and populism are no longer constrained by national borders, so this new Gilded Age is already transforming the economics of the West as well. <i>Plutocrats</i> demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.<br />
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Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Crystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international "Plutonomy" and not the national "rest"; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed "middle class" and the world's one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China's National People's Congress have amassed more wealth than the net worth of all the members of all three branches of the U.S. government combined--the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.<br />
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Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world's wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Brightly written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, <i>Plutocrats</i> is a tour de force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time.<br />
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<b>Review</b>: As a language geek, it's always fun for me when I can bring that knowledge into this blog. In my perfect world, everyone would multilingual and would be as excited about grammar as I am. This isn't my perfect world. I bring this up because the word "plutocrat" gets thrown around a lot and there are probably a lot of people who are unaware of its meaning. In the ancient Greek "ploutos" means "wealth" and "kratos" means "power." Therefore, the word "plutocrat" roughly means "power through wealth." Chrystia Freeland's timely book about those who have gained power through wealth is an excellent source of information for those of us who are curious as to how the super-rich got that way, what they will do to hold onto their wealth and power, and what this could mean for the rest of us.<br />
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The dust has started to clear from the financial crisis of 2008 and with that clarity comes a startling realization: we the people are no better off now than we were at the height of the crisis. Republicans want to throw all the blame at President Obama, but those following the bailout and other aspects of the global financial meltdown who aren't drinking the Republican Kool-Aid can see that those at the top of our economy are doing very, very well indeed. Anyone with a grain of sense in them can recognize a pattern when they see one and I'd like to think that I have a grain of sense. Global financial crisis + bailouts to banks and industries rather than to those of us on Main Street (which was a Bush initiative that Obama carried out no matter how many people want to call it "Obama's Bailout") + concentration of wealth at the top = continued financial strain for the rest of us.<br />
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Freeland's <i>Plutocrats</i> explores the world of the super-rich, the billionaires who hold more financial and political power than they should, with an approachable writing style, humor, and an eye towards the Gilded Age. Drawing on history, economics, psychology, and personal interviews, Freeland paints a startling portrait of wealth and privilege around the world. Even an informed reader will be shocked by some of the revelations in this book, as well as by the attitudes of the super-rich. They really do see themselves as being separate from the rest of us and from the interests of the countries in which they were born, raised, and made a fortune.<br />
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Examining the lifestyles of the rich and the powerful, Freeland draws conclusions that highlight the danger we are all in of falling victim to the unchecked power and greed of CEOs and other earners of astronomical income--people who will risk capital to the detriment of society all in the hope of becoming even more rich. Anyone who lost their investments or their life savings or their job after Wall Street's meltdown can attest to the perils of a world in which the rich are unaccountable. And yet, because of their own desire to be rich and living the high life, many people affected by the financial crisis are more willing to buy into conservative notions of the danger of raising taxes on high-income-earners, the so-called "job creators," than they are to demand that those who fly in private jets and wall themselves off in large houses away from the troubles of the world should have to pay back into the society that helped them to become wealthy in the first place.<br />
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Freeland shows how the super-rich blame everyone but themselves for the financial hardships of the last four years and how they view themselves as being above the mundane issues of everyday Americans (or Indians or Chinese or wherever they are from). She gives evidence of their lack of loyalty to anyone but themselves and of their lack of understanding/concern about what they are doing to everyone else in the pursuit of that next car/house/jet/vacation. She tells of millionaires (and billionaires) who feel that they aren't making enough, giving credence to Plato's ideas about the tyrant--a tyrant is never satisfied with what he has and is always going to the next level of excess looking for happiness and never finding it. The tyrants of our age are the plutocrats and those just below them who desire to be plutocrats. Freeland's interviews and anecdotes about the super-rich prove that. And their constant search for happiness in excess will bring further hardship to the rest of us.<br />
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I highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it may sway you away from your support of the "job creators" by realizing that they aren't there to create jobs but to make money for themselves. Once the lower and middle classes in this country--and elsewhere--are informed about what is actually being done behind the closed doors of board rooms and in the lavish mansions of the upper crust, we might actually be able to have reasonable discussions about how to move forward in such a way that the middle class isn't hollowed out and the poor aren't left with no way to clamber out of the pit of poverty they have been thrown into. If you walk away from this book with anything, I hope that it is with a feeling of indignation and a determination to stop the cycle of income inequality that is plaguing this nation and the world.<br />
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I'm giving <i>Plutocrats</i> five out of five Gabriels.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-86804565154683648402012-12-13T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-05T21:52:30.385-05:00Dude, Where's That Star?: A Review of Tristan Gooley's The Natural Navigator<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Title: <i>The Natural Navigator: A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill</i><br />
Author: <a href="https://twitter.com/NaturalNav" target="_blank">Tristan Gooley</a><br />
Edition: The Experiment (Hardcover, 2010)<br />
Pages: 296<br />
How I Came by This Book: This was sitting up on the "New Acquisitions" shelf at my library. Being the hiking, nature geek that I am I immediately had to check it out.<br />
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<b>About the Author</b>: Tristan Gooley set up his natural navigation school, The Natural Navigator, after studying and practicing the art for over ten years. His passion for the subject stems from hands-on experience. He has led five expeditions in five continents; climbed mountains in Europe, Africa, and Asia; sailed across oceans; and piloted small aircraft to Africa and the Arctic. He is the only living person to have both flown and sailed solo across the Atlantic. Tristan is a Fellow of both the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Geographical Society and is the Vice Chairman of Trailfinders. He lives with his wife and two sons in West Sussex.<br />
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<b>Synopsis</b>: Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. A windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong could point the way home--and, for the alert traveler, they still can.<br />
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Whether you go exploring in the mountains or on a lunch break, natural navigation will keep you on course and open your eyes to the small wonders of the natural world. Almost anything in out environment can help us find our way--if we know what to look for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in: the sun, moon, and stars; clouds; weather patterns; lengthening shadows; changing tides; plant growth; the habits of local wildlife; and more.<br />
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Enriched by helpful illustrations and filled with navigational anecdotes collected across centuries, continents, and cultures, <i>The Natural Navigator</i> proves that anyone with a curious mind can still find south by looking at the moon--and find adventure in their own backyard.<br />
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<b>Review</b>: I'm going to be honest with you--I don't notice the little things. I'm much more of a big picture kind of person. Regardless of the fact that my cover letters always say that I'm detail-oriented, I'm not really. (Don't look at me like that. Everyone lies in their cover letter.) Tristan Gooley is a details man. He's also, judging from that photo and some of the stories he tells in his fascinating book on natural navigation, kind of a badass.<br />
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I picked this book up in the hopes of learning some things about the world around me that would help me when I went hiking, which is about the only type of adventure that I go on. My desire to learn how to navigate stems from a very bad solo hike I took a few years ago in which I got ridiculously lost and ended up having to call a friend to come pick me up from wherever the hell I wound up in the end. Needless to say, dehydrated and tired and hopelessly-uncertain-of-where-I-am is not a good look for me.<br />
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In reading this book I learned a lot of interesting things, although whether or not they would be helpful to me without real, hands-on instruction is doubtful. I think a lot of people who read this book will come away with the same thought. While some of it is easily transferrable from page to reality--it's not hard to look at a tree and see the checkmark pattern caused by the prevailing wind or to locate the North Star--but some of the other things that Gooley talks about aren't as easy to learn from a book, especially when you're not that great at things like angles, patience, or having normal-sized hands.<br />
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The book is fun and full of lots of interesting anecdotes from Gooley's own personal experiences and from people throughout the world. Some of the chapters were a bit long and draggy, but that's probably because I don't really have any experience/interest in traversing deserts or oceans. Other chapters were chock-ful of information that could actually be useful for me. I would just have to have the book on hand or at least some notes to go by because there's no way I would remember all of it.<br />
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There's something in here for everyone, even those who prefer to have adventures in the city or in their own backyard. Some of the best bits of the book, however, are where Gooley shows off his wit. Two of my favorite passages are:<br />
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The name "Greenland" was chosen by Erik [the Red] to entice the Icelanders to come to a land that was anything but green. Twenty-five ships set sail from Iceland to follow Erik to the new land. Eleven of them didn't make it there to discover just how optimistic the name Greenland was... (p. 8)</blockquote>
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Snails can find their way over relatively huge distances, a thousand feet or more, but lose this ability if they are shaken in a bag, which raises two questions: Why do they lose this ability and why were they shaken in a bag? (p. 216)</blockquote>
<i>The Natural Navigator</i> combines navigation, history, nature, environmentalism, humor, and anecdotal evidence to create a fun and fascinating read. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the world around them or even to anyone who is just looking to impress their friends at parties. Imagine how much cooler you'll look to the hot chick/guy you're chatting up when you tell them that you can not only point out constellations but can use them to find your way to their place. On second thought, that's probably not a good line to use.<br />
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I'm giving <i>The Natural Navigator</i> 4.5 out 5 Gabriels.<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-21661717854844911842012-12-12T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-05T13:57:10.680-05:00Dea(r)th of News: A Review of Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Title: <i>The Imperfectionists</i><br />
Author: Tom Rachman<br />
Edition: Dial Press Trade Paperback (Paperback, 2011)<br />
Pages: 281<br />
How I Came by This Book: I picked this up from a library book sale a few months ago simply because I liked the cover.<br />
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<b>About the Author</b>: <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Tom Rachman was born in 1974 in London, but grew up in Vancouver. He studied cinema at the University of Toronto and completed a Master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in New York. From 1998, he worked as an editor at the foreign desk of The Associated Press in New York, then did a stint as a reporter in India and Sri Lanka, before returning to New York. In 2002, he was sent to Rome as an AP correspondent, with assignments taking him to Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Egypt. Beginning in 2006, he worked part-time as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris to support himself while writing fiction. He now lives in London, where he is working on his second novel." (from GoodReads)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><b>Synopsis</b>: <span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it—and themselves—afloat.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Fifty years and many changes have ensued since the paper was founded by an enigmatic millionaire, and now, amid the stained carpeting and dingy office furniture, the staff’s personal dramas seem far more important than the daily headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editor in chief, is smarting from a betrayal in her open marriage; Arthur, the lazy obituary writer, is transformed by a personal tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial officer, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unexpected way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to desperate lengths for his next byline, while the new Cairo stringer is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsize ego. And in the shadows is the isolated young publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound, Schopenhauer, than to the fate of his family’s quirky newspaper.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">As the era of print news gives way to the Internet age and this imperfect crew stumbles toward an uncertain future, the paper’s rich history is revealed, including the surprising truth about its founder’s intentions.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">Spirited, moving, and highly original, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><i>The Imperfectionists</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"> will establish Tom Rachman as one of our most perceptive, assured literary talents."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Review</b>: I went into this book with almost no expectations. I saw the cover and read the much-shorter and not-even-really-a blurb on the back and thought, "Huh, this might be a fun, quirky read." What I found instead was a sad character-driven novel where the lives of the characters are unravelling just like the paper they work for. In short, my only expectation was completely off base. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><i>The Imperfectionists</i> begins with a washed-out, has-been foreign correspondent for an English-language newspaper in Rome living in Paris. From there it follows the lives of the various writers, readers, and editors of the dying paper. Their stories are separate but weave into each other as a character from one story is mentioned in another. You don't realize at first that this is what Rachman is doing but as the novel progresses all of these slightly intermingling stories crash together at the end in a tragic way. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">These are stories of loss, death, depression, madness. Even with the few-and-far-between humorous moments, the overarching mood of the book is sadness. I often felt ill-at-ease, as if I was trespassing on private property or reading someone's diary. Rachman bares these characters, stripping them of any control over their lives and utterly destroying them emotionally--all within the span of about twenty pages. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">There's the woman who is mercilessly teased by her co-workers and who is so incredibly lonely that she pretends to be a woman on a business trip every New Year's Eve so that she can stay at a hotel instead of being home by herself. There is the man whose daughter tragically dies and is forced to face her death through the eyes of a dying woman. There is the woman who thinks she has found a kindred spirit on a plane ride to the states but learns all too late that she is being made a fool of. Each of these characters plays a part in their own story and in other stories; none is left unscarred somehow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The writing is often starkly beautiful and the way in which the stories thread together is marvelous, but the depressing tone of the book kept me from fully enjoying it. I think it was the discomfort that I felt intruding into their lives that got me in the end. I wanted to like this novel--and in some ways I did--but by the time I got to the last sentence, I was too overwhelmed by it all to fully appreciate its beauty. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Maybe it all boils down to my own feelings of sadness, inadequacy, and loss. Maybe even the happiest, most successful person in the world could read it and still come away feeling the same. Who knows? Regardless, the book is well-written and the characters are fleshed out so well in such a short space that it's obvious Rachman is a terrific author. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">I'm giving <i>The Imperfectionists</i> 4 out of 5 Gabriels.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">-Gabe</span></span></div>
gabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4515719778921089707.post-11321509076238813172012-12-11T11:32:00.000-05:002015-01-05T22:09:48.617-05:00Top Ten Tuesday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/2012/12/julias-top-ten-new-to-me-authors-of-2012.html">Top Ten Tuesday</a> is a weekly feature hosted by the ladies over at <a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/">The Broke and the Bookish</a>. Each week book bloggers are <a href="http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html">given a prompt</a> and asked to answer it in the form of a top ten list. This is my absolute favorite blog meme and if you aren't already taking part you should be.<br />
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This week's prompt: <b>Top Ten New-To-Me Authors in 2012</b><br />
<b><br /></b> Most of the books I've read this year have been written by authors I had never read before. Some of them are authors that I would like to read more of while others are authors I could do without reading again. Instead of listing my ten favorite authors like the prompt asked, I'm simply going to list the ten authors I read for the first time this year and give you my opinion of them.<br />
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1) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasperfforde">Jasper Fforde</a>: The first time I heard about Jasper Fforde was about six years ago in one of the computer labs at my college. Someone had left behind his first Thursday Next novel, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142001805/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142001805&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=H6D5Z55OMNJA5AAM">The Eyre Affair</a></i>, and I picked it up to read the back, intrigued by the blurb. And then I did nothing about it for over half a decade. Friends and fellow bloggers raved about him and told me I should read his books, but for some reason I never did. Then I saw <i>The Eyre Affair</i> at a library book sale a few months ago and told myself that I needed to buy it. I read it this past week and loved it. My review will be up soonish but for now I will simply say that I will be reading more of his work in the years to come.<br />
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2) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrisgenoa">Chris Genoa</a>: Another author that I found at that same library book sale, but this time one that I will probably never read again. I know that as <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/11/this-is-your-brain-on-drugs-review-of.html">Foop!</a> </i>is his first novel I should probably cut him some slack and give his other stuff a try, but I honestly just don't want to.<br />
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3) John Irving: This is another name that I had heard bandied about before as a worthwhile author to read. Reading <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/10/reading-is-gift-review-of-john-irvings.html">A Prayer for Owen Meany</a></i> had me practically salivating for more of his books, which is why I've picked up <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034536676X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=034536676X&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=67LDJJ2DKRE6WXOJ">The World According to Garp</a></i> and will be reading it in a short while. He's a fairly prolific writer so I won't run out of his novels anytime soon.<br />
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4) Max Brooks: I keep meaning to write a review of Brooks' <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307346617/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307346617&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=TKKR5VM2LB6G55D3">World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War</a></i>, which I read on Don's Kindle a few months before I came back to blogging. I would love to read more of his work, especially if it contains zombie goodness. :)<br />
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5) Tom Rachman: My review of Tom Rachman's <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/dearth-of-news-review-of-tom-rachmans.html">The Imperfectionists</a></i> will be coming soon. While the writing was beautiful, the sadness of the novel didn't exactly have me clamoring to find more of his novels after I read it. I'd have to say that I'm currently on the fence about reading more from this author but am totally open to people prodding me, telling me that I should get right on that.<br />
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6) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenoitTheWriter">Charles Benoit</a>: I was completely blown away by Charles Benoit's <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/11/what-have-you-done-review-of-you-by.html">You</a></i> and am dying to read his other novels. As a fellow Rochesterian that I've met once before (I only read this book because he came into the bookstore that I work at and suggested it to me) I'm currently trying to work up the lady <i>cojones </i>to ask him if he would be willing to do an interview for this blog. You'll all be the first to know if I do.<br />
<i><br /></i> 7) Stanislaw Lem: Regardless of how I felt about some of the stories in <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/10/out-amongst-stars-review-of-stanislaw.html" style="font-style: italic;">Star Diaries</a>, the book was actually a really fun, thought-provoking read and I'd be curious to read some of Lem's other work, especially <i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156027607/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0156027607&linkCode=as2&tag=gabrread-20&linkId=CRFJVTC6CQ667LOS%22%3ESolaris%3C/a%3E">Solaris</a></i>.<br />
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8) Robert Heinlein: Despite some issues that I had with <a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/11/thou-art-god-review-of-robert-heinleins.html" style="font-style: italic;">Stranger in a Strange Land</a>, I'm looking forward to digging into more of Heinlein's work. One of Don's friends, Andrew, has gifted me with audio books of some of his other novels, so if I don't get a chance to read them I can still listen to them.<br />
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9) <a href="https://twitter.com/Louise_Rennison">Louise Rennison</a>: I loved <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/10/fabbity-fab-fab-review-of-angus-thongs.html">Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging</a> </i>and, while I doubt that I'll end up reading the entire Georgia Nicolson series, I will definitely be reading a few more of them in the future.<br />
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10)<i> </i><a href="https://twitter.com/cafreeland">Chrystia Freeland</a>: I recently finished <i><a href="http://gabrielreads.blogspot.com/2012/12/gilded-age-20-review-of-chrystia.html">Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else</a></i> and loved the way that Freeland wrote and would definitely read books by her in the future. A review of the book is forthcoming.<br />
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Out of your own top ten list for this week, who was your ultimate favorite new-to-you author in 2012?<br />
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-Gabegabrielreadshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11809365791580695386noreply@blogger.com6