WWW Wednesday/Waiting on Wednesday (Feb 24)

For Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, this week my pick is Pegasus by Robin McKinley. (My feelings about unicorns are also my feelings about pegasi.)

The blurb, via Robin McKinley’s website:

Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pegasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially-trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.

But it’s different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close—so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo—and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.

Pegasus comes out in November 2010. (I was alerted to this one by The Book Smugglers, a hilarious book reviewing site that you should check out if you don’t already!)

WWW Wednesdays are hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.  To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading? Nearly done with The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, which I described in my Teaser Tuesday yesterday. It takes the weariness, the disillusionment, and the isolation felt by many Vietnam vets and looks at it through a sci-fi lens. An unexpectedly powerful and moving book.

 

 

What did you recently finish reading? Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It was my first read EVER of Pratchett’s and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. (I’ve already read some of Gaiman’s work.)

 

 

 

What do you think you’ll read next? Decisions, decisions! I’m going on a trip this weekend, so I need to pull something I already have on my shelves to take with me. I’m thinking Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters.

Teaser Tuesday (Feb 23)!

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This Teaser Tuesday is from The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, which I started yesterday.

It’s a dark, sci-fi treatment of the Vietnam War that pits the forcibly-drafted intellectual and physical elite of humanity against an alien species they know nothing about. (An aside: Now, I’ve got an iron-clad stomach when it comes to books [American Psycho, Under the Skin, Dexter, and Joyce Carol Oates's works are all on my "been read" list] but there was a scene here that literally gave me vertigo. It probably didn’t help that I was reading it while on a crowded 1 train.)

Anyway, the Teaser!

Still no Marygay among the dim figures picking their way through the ranked couches and jumbled tubing. “Um, you were only a couple of minutes late…but we were only supposed to be under for four hours, maybe less. It’s 1050.”

“Um.” He shook his head again. I let go of him and stood back to let Stiller and Demy through the door.

“Everybody’s late, then,” Bergman said. “So we aren’t in any trouble.”

“Uh–” Non sequiturs. “Right, right–Hey, Stiller! You seen–”

From inside: “Medic! MEDIC!”

WWW Wednesday/Waiting on Wednesday (Feb 17)

WWW Wednesdays are hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

Heeeeere’s tarynwanderer!

What are you currently reading? I’m just starting Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It’s embarrassing to admit for a self-professed fantasy nerd, but I’ve only read ONE book by Gaiman (Neverwhere) and NONE by Pratchett. So I’m looking forward to this one a lot.

 What did you recently finish reading? Just finished John James Audubon: The Making of an American, and it was so, so interesting. He was pretty ahead of his time in terms of his thinking about birds and protection of natural resources. He was an inspiring guy–didn’t let business failure, money woes, or age get him down! (Yeah…I kind of have a crush on Audubon now.)

What do you think you’ll read next? I’m keeping my options open! Waiting for several packages to arrive that include The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, The Commoner by John Burnam Schwartz, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, and Forever by Pete Hamill. So it depends which one stikes me once I’ve got my grubby lil’ paws on it.

As for my Waiting on Wednesday pick (hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine), this week I’m going with Anthill, by E.O Wilson. If you are interested in science and nature at all, you’ve probs read some of Wilson’s work before. But Anthill is his first foray into FICTION! Awesome. It sounds like Wilson brings his trademark depth and level of detail to a new kind of story.

The blurb, via Amazon:

Astonishing, inspirational, even magical: a naturalist’s novel about an Alabama boy who heroically tries to save a sacred forest. “What the hell do you want?” snarled Frogman at Raff Cody, as the boy stepped innocently on the reputed murderer’s property. Fifteen years old, Raff had only wanted to catch a glimpse of Frogman’s 1,000-pound alligator. Thus begins the epic story of Anthill, part thriller, part parable, which follows the adventures of Raff, a modern-day Huck Finn, whose improbable love of ants ends up transforming his own life and those around him. Alarmed by condo developers who are intent on destroying Alabama’s endangered Nokobee tract, Raff idealistically heads off to law school. Returning home, he encounters the angry and corrupt ghosts of an old South he thought had disappeared. The sacred woods he must now travel through to save Lake Nokobee are teeming with unimaginable danger. Anthill, with some of the most striking scientific detail ever seen in a popular novel, will transfix readers with its stunning twists and startling revelations of the true meaning of nature’s wildness.

Anthill, by  E.O Wilson, comes out on April 5th.