Sunday Browse in the Book Blogosphere

Good morning! I’ve had some lovely time in the sun on my balcony, puttering with plants in pots, and now I’m going to browse through the book blogs in my neighbourhood. I may try to be a bit quicker than usual, though, because it’s going to be a busy day. For one thing, I read The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff yesterday, and need to write a review. Among many other bits of writing. So! Let’s have a quick gander…

And I have a newcomer today: Stacy from Stacy’s Bookblog. She just got back from a trip to New York (and came back with books, surprise surprise). Meanwhile, she’s reviewing several of Jeffrey Deaver’s books about paraplegic Lincoln Rhymes. I’ve never heard of these books before, and the premise seems really interesting.

Stacy does mention that the fifth book seems more like a “politically correct history lesson,” and that would have been my own worry about this sort of series. I imagine an author has to walk a fine line when dealing with a topic like this. But feminist writers have always had the same problem — in fact, anyone writing about a major social topic like this would face this issue.

At Puss Reboots, Sarah continues her review of the chapters of James Joyce’s Ulysses. She also had a guest review of Can You Spell Revolution? And reviewed a baseball story, “Stratosphere,” from the April/May edition of the Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine. Very eclectic and interesting week!

Meanwhile, over at Minds Alive on the Shelves, a review I’ve eagerly been awaiting! Lisa recently finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and loved it. I wasn’t sure about the book when I heard about it, but reading Lisa’s comments about it while she was reading it made me eager to read it myself. Now she’s reading Fool by Christopher Moore, and her comments and those of other friends are making me want to read that too.

Melanie at The Indextrious Reader is doing what several book bloggers are doing this week: catching up on reviews. It’s not so much that she’s being conscientious (though she is), but this is the project this week of the Weekly Geeks. Given that I have about three I want to review too, and probably more, I’d do this as well if I just had time. Melanie also mentions something I missed when I wrote about Yann Martel finally hearing from PM Stephen Harper’s office: Martel’s essays are going to be collected into a book that will be released this autumn by Vintage Canada. Yay!

At Dark Novels, Carrie is dealing with some interesting health questions, and also explains how she came to enjoy the “dark” stories so much. And her background is more similar to mine than I realized. (I’m an ex-fundie.) This really adds another whole layer to things.

Joanne at The Book Zombie is going to participate in a short story summer reading program dreamed up by Harper Perennial, and mentioned  at The Savvy Reader blog: “Summer is Short, Read a Story.”

Then there’s another newcomer to my blogroll: Harvee at Book Bird Dog. He’s reviewing a ton of books that have me interested in the mystery and thriller genre. Illegal, by Paul Levine is a book I read about when I first started getting the newsletters from publishers in this genre, and I’ve looked for it in my local library. Alas that it wasn’t at my branch! But soon…

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog is engaging in several giveaways, partly because June 12 (Friday) was her one-year anniversary of creating the blog. Congratulations, Kathy! And she mentions that author Mary Kay Andrews will be on Blog Talk Radio this coming Tuesday.

At Alpha Heroes, Nicola is also doing the “catch up on reviews.” In her case, she uses the Thursday Thirteen meme to do mini-reviews in the style of Chris at the Stumbling Over Chaos blog.

And at another new blog on the blogroll, A Book A Week, Kiirsten has spent much of the week raving about Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel. Her Tuesday Teaser was about that book, and her most recent post is a very long and extensive (and happy) review. She also highly recommends another book blog, Books & other thoughts, for its variety, organization, and insight. Another blog I’m going to start watching, I think.

And that’s our tour for the week. Have a good upcoming week, enjoying our wealth of books!