BOOKISHGAL

It’s Sunday! So it’s time to see what the rest of my little book world has been up to in the past week. Let us choose our first partner…

Hopeinbrazil at Worthwhile Books just reviewed Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. That’s a kids’ book you don’t see much these days. Reading the review, I was reminded again of C.S. Lewis’s belief that you should often provide kids’ books that give them something to aspire to, and reach up toward, rather than keeping them always at the level they’re at now. I feel we’re “dumbing down” kids’ books way too much, and could be raising a generation of people with stunted intellectual capacities, who never had to stretch and grow that much. I frequently breathe a “thank you” to my aunt, who gave me Lord of the Rings to read when I was ten.

Over at The Printed Page, Marcia has a long but fascinating post on “faith-based” novels, and whether they’re any good, or too preachy, or what. She has given them a very good shot, reading several of them (or long sections of them), trying to make a fair assessment of each. I’ll let you nip over and see her conclusions for yourself. My own thought is that if the person is a writer first, aiming to craft a good story first, and a believer second (i.e. not viewing the story merely as a tool for converting people and preaching at them), then this sort of writing can work. But it’s rare that a fundamentalist or evangelical author can do that; the goal is always “How can I use this to change the readers to my religious viewpoint?” (I’m an ex-fundie. Trust me, I know.)

Melanie at The Indextrious Reader has a link to an interesting website and trailer for Tanya Egan’s new book (due in May), How to Buy a Love of Reading.  I’m not sure it sounds like the sort of book I’d like, but the website has an interesting look. And there’s one section there where you can submit a story of how you believe reading saved your life. So…has it? What do you think? It’s an interesting question.

Later on, Melanie reviews La’s Orchestra Saves the World, a new book by Alexander McCall Smith (he of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency fame). This dovetails nicely with the post from Lisa, at Minds Alive on the Shelves, where she notes that starting tonight, HBO is beginning the broadcast of a new series based on these novels. If you’re a fan and you have HBO, you might want to check out the show.

Flit, at Flitting on Fiction, discusses various ebook readers, and whether she should get one. The answer: but of course! There’s actually a lot more to the discussion than that, including the fact that Amazon thinks Canadians are chopped liver (I agree with her). Meanwhile, her review of one of Robert Sawyer’s books, End of an Era, led me to Sawyer’s blog, on which he mentions that his new book, Wake, will be launched at two parties in April, one in Ottawa and the other in Toronto. Since I live in Toronto, I should add the launch to my calendar, and see if I can go.

Meanwhile, over at Books and Movies , Carrie gives a summary of how she’s doing on her Reading Challenges for 2009. I  haven’t managed one Challenge so far, so I get kind of exhausted at all the one’s she’s participating in. She seems to be doing pretty well, though. She also talks about some of her favourite mystery series, and asks readers to chime in with their own favourites.

Sheri S. at Bookopolis has discovered a really interesting site GraphicNovelReporter.com which, naturally, covers the growing graphic novel (and manga) phenomenon. If you’re interested in graphic novels, bookmark that site, but read Sheri’s post for an excellent summary of what happens there. I’m going to follow this one for sure!

At The Book Zombie, Joanne is positively giddy about the just-concluded blog tour by Carrie Vaughn, who writes the Kitty Norville series. Joanne’s reviews are always so thorough, and have all sorts of extra goodies. This time around, as well as her reviews, she posts a drop-down list of all the other blogs that Ms. Vaughn visited, as well as a BlogTalkRadio link to an interview with the author. And she’s got a book giveway too! Where does Joanne find the time to do such a detailed job of this?? Rush over and have a look and enjoy.

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog does several book reviews, but I’m most struck by the recipe review with which she starts this week: a Pork Tenderloin with Plum Salsa. It’s from this Runner’s World page, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, authors of The Flavor Bible, which Kathy had previously reviewed. Talk about a delicious perk of being a book reviewer!

Over at Alpha Heroes, Nicola lets us know about a “virtual signing” you can register for, for J.R. Ward’s latest book, Lover Avenged. Since. Ms. Ward doesn’t fly, and rarely goes out of the U.S. midwest, this is a great compromise for fans who wanted their book signed, but can’t get to Ward’s in-person events. Meanwhile, you may recall that Nicola was designing bookmarks to trade and give out, connected to her blog, and she’s decided on a final design. Send her an email if you’d like one.

And finally, the Weekly Geeks challenge is a very good one for this week, involving  pointing readers to the book reviews you’ve done, asking them to leave comments about their reviews of the same books on your own posts, and going to other reviewers’ posts and leaving your own links. Look at the Weekly Geeks site for a clearer explanation.

And that’s it for this week! So much going on, one almost hates to spend time doing other things. But take a swing around the book blogosphere and enjoy a good read.

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