Novelish

• The New York Times reviewed Deathly Hallows
• JK Rowling and her publishers weren’t happy (neither was Leaky)

I don’t think anyone could say the review’s content ruined the book for them. If the New York Times obtained a copy of the book, how can you blame them for writing about it? Wouldn’t keeping quite to please a private company be bad journalism?

• I’ll be attending a local release party tonight

While I don’t know all the details, it looks as though it’s going to be pretty big. Check back early tomorrow for pictures, and I’ll post a review as soon as possible.

So, I was reading the social news site Digg a minute ago. And Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is on the internet now.

Many of the sites where it was posted quickly removed it, but since hundreds of people already have it, I think there are bound to be copies floating around over the next three days.

Not to mention spoilers.

ISBN: 978-0743298025 | Words: 129,509
Author: Diane Setterfield

I avoided this book for the longest time, despite being rather attracted to the cover, because the title and jacket text both led me to believe it was a collection of short stories wrapped in a narrative of some sort.

The Thirteenth Tale does contain stories, but they’re more like windows into the past (of the fictional world, I mean) and very much a part of everything else that’s going on. Not at all what I’d led myself to believe.

The main character, Margaret, is asked to compile the biography of famed author Vida Winter (who, going from the book’s descriptions, is a sort of J.K. Rowling of adult literature, only more so). Margaret considers denying the request, but at length agrees to hear Vida’s story and is captivated by it.

The plot is good - I wished they wouldn’t have hidden quite so much from the reader, but it’s still well-crafted. The settings of old Gothic-like houses, windswept moors and a second-hand London bookshop are, of course, very appealing to me.

All the Gothic-like houses and windswept moors in the world can’t redeem a book if I don’t like its writing; fortunately, The Thirteenth Tale is one of a very few modern books that sound near-perfect to my ear.^[1]

Everything considered, I’d enjoyed this a lot and I’d enthusiastically recommend it if the premise interests you.

See also:

• Official website
• Excerpt

I’m writing.

In fact, I’ve probably done more on my novel so far this month than in all of June, and it’s nice to see it start to come together. I’ve even been doing three or four handwritten pages in my journal every day - producing horrid crap that will never again be read is fun.

I’m just not doing it on Novelish. I suppose it’s the writing for an audience thing that’s stopping me. It’s been difficult for me to declare something “good enough to post,” especially on those days when, for whatever reason, the words don’t come out easily. But I think, and hope, I’m over it by now - mostly - so you may be seeing more of me, if all goes well.

Besides that (and a minor Read in 2007 page update), there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot happening this past week, either in the world of books or with me. A couple of reviews are very slowly being worked on. It’s enormously hot here.

After Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which I’ve read twice already and very likely will again, it’s hard to open her second novel without having expectations or making comparisons. (The average rating of this book on Amazon is down to 2.5, I think, for that reason.)

To get those out of the way, then: the wonderful first-person narrative of The Secret History is absent, as is the whole atmosphere of the university setting. The beautiful descriptions I remembered are nowhere to be found.

Even so, I did like it. Judging The Little Friend on its own, which is probably how it should be judged, I liked it even more.

Donna Tartt is great at slipping acute observations on everyday details in, and for me, that alone made it a fun read. It’s obvious she gives a lot of thought to each word. She says as much in an interview on Identity Theory:

It is just pebble by pebble by pebble by pebble. I write one sentence until I am happy with it until I go on to the next one and write that one until I am happy with it. And I look at my paragraph and if I am not happy with that I’ll write the paragraph until I’m happy with it and then I go on this way.

The plot’s simple enough: twelve-year-old Harriet sets out to find her brother’s murderer and extract her revenge, aided by her devoted friend Hely. Harriet is a wonderfully developed character who I found myself liking despite any personality flaws. And though the events are all rather unlikely, they are, somehow, completely believable.

If The Little Friend sounds interesting and you’d like a more thorough review, Salon.com’s is very well done.

See also:

• Review on Letters from London
• Review on Words for Eyes
• Excerpt of first chapter

Book News & Reviews

• Sara’s Holds Shelf reviewed Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamhunter. She recommends it for fans of Philip Pullman, which is enough to get my attention.
• George R. R. Martin posted an update on his LiveJournal. A Dance with Dragons is going slowly, but making some progress; he’s hired an assistant.
• Fantasy Book Critic reviewed The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s going on my list of books to read at some point in the future, I think.
• Mary Modern is coming out next month and looks promising - I’m really enjoying literary fiction that includes some elements of fantasy lately. (Found this on Fantasy Book Critic’s list of July books, but the post has mysteriously disappeared since.)
• It strikes me that this is all decidedly fantasy-genre in nature, which wasn’t my intent. I did finish Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend. My review of that is in the works.

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You may have noticed the Google ads on the sidebar by now. I’ll be experimenting with different positions, but I’m going to try and keep them from getting in the way if at all possible.

If you really don’t like them, get Firefox and install the Adblock Plus extension. It removes the majority of web advertising.

“Rockin’ Girl Blogger”

Tiffany of the RockStories blog presented me with this shiny award:

As I understand it, I’m supposed to pass it on to five other bloggers. The idea of that is a little intimidating, since I’m so new to the blogosphere, but I’ll try.

1. Bookshelves of Doom - Book reviews, news, and other miscellaneous thoughts - more or less the same type of thing as Novelish.
2. Maddy, who is guest blogging on Neil Gaiman’s journal for two weeks (starting June 20th). She’s done a great job of it so far.
3. Arin i Asolde - Quite possibly the best collection of fiction writing advice available on the internet.
4. Miss Snark - She’s no longer blogging, but she still deserves it.
5. Violent Acres - Just because I enjoy reading it when I have the time.

I should say that these are based wholly on whether I like them personally - nothing else. I’m not sure if “rockin” is a term I’d use to describe any of them.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t describe Novelish that way either, but oh well.

ISBN: 978-1570615009
Pages: 304 (paperback)
Author: Nancy Pearl

Most of what I could say about this book is also true of Book Lust, which I reviewed last month - the largest difference being that this covers young adult and children’s literature exclusively. Instead of repeating myself, I’ll add a few additional thoughts.

Though Book Crush gave me a few dozen titles which may turn out worthwhile, I was less impressed overall.

I read just about every dragon story I could lay my hands on when I was younger, so YA books featuring dragons is a topic I know a fair bit about. Book Crush’s list of them seemed notably incomplete - Dragons of a Lost Sea (and sequels) and Dragon’s Milk are two books I would consider absolutely essential, yet both were absent.

I didn’t notice any obvious omissions on the other lists, though perhaps because I’m not as familiar with their topics.

Book Crush is sorted by age group, with numerous Book Lust-style book lists within each section. Nancy Pearl surprised me by suggesting parents evaluate several of the books in the teen section due to mature content.

Now, I’m against any sort of censorship - I think people should be able to read anything they want by that age. Even if you disagree with me on that point, though, it still doesn’t make sense: she recommends Gregory Maguire’s Wicked later on without comment. I love Wicked, but it’s marketed as an adult book and several teens I know complained to me about the sex scenes. So why hand out these warnings selectively?

Moving on: many books are suggested specifically for male or female readers, and it seems a little presumptuous to assume someone will like or dislike something based on their gender. (From PW’s January 22nd 2007 issue: “At Books and Co. in Dayton, Ohio, two teenage boys stood in line for an hour and a half to get a pair of jeans signed” by Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants author Ann Brashares.)

I think it’s a good idea to give any type of book a chance - particularly for writers, but really anyone. I’d have thought a librarian of all people would agree. Assuming someone really doesn’t want to read something, don’t they have the intelligence to deduce that for themselves, based on the description? Or at least by browsing some reviews online, which you should probably do before rushing out to order it, anyway.

Then there are recommendations for books that, honestly, I don’t think are worth recommending. Stuff like Eragon (which I disliked) and Just Listen (which I despised) were not only mentioned but praised. While my opinion of those books may be in part a personal one, it doesn’t give me much faith in the other suggestions.

ISBN: [Varies by edition] Words: 162,000
Author: Daphne Du Maurier

“THE UNSURPASSED MODERN MASTERPIECE OF ROMANTIC SUSPENSE,” boasts the cover.

Well, I’m not sure about that - the book was published in 1938, and neither romantic nor suspenseful are adjectives that immediately spring to mind, by today’s standards - but I enjoyed Rebecca quite a lot for other reasons.

The unnamed narrator of Rebecca is vacationing with her employer when they happen to meet the widower Maxim de Winter at their hotel. She soon falls hopelessly in love with him, and though she couldn’t be more astonished when he proposes to her, she accepts. They have a small, private wedding while traveling abroad.

But when they return to Maxim’s magnificent country estate - Manderley - some of the servants are less than welcoming to the new Mrs de Winter. Her happiness, she realizes, may not come as naturally as she had expected.

Does that sound boring? Because it’s not. The plot was very well put together, in fact, and contained some fairly sizable surprises.

The writing felt extremely British and reminded me of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle in places. I liked it. I liked it enough that I’d probably read most anything written in a similar style, regardless of content.

The whole atmosphere created by the book’s style is also apparent in its settings - Manderley shares all the charm of Brideshead or one of those large houses from the Jeeves and Wooster television series. It was all very early-twentieth-century, in a good way.

Some reviewers consider the ending to be something of a tragedy, but all things considered, I wouldn’t agree. I thought it was satisfying enough. I should probably leave it at that so I don’t spoil anything, but I’m sure anyone who’s read the book will understand what I’m talking about.