Bookgamy: a polygamic relationship between me and my books

A post about my reading habits.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Book to Movie adaptation

I’m sure you can see it from the featured image; the aesthetics are completely different and while the amazing cover by Vintage is preparing us for a fascinating journey into uncharted literary territories, the movie poster seems to allude to a hyper-sexualised story about prostitutes (?) maybe. To be fair, the first cover was rather…

My year in books: 2015 edition

It might be February now but every year I promise myself I will right one of these and every year I fail to deliver. Mostly because I think about it, and then think about it some more, I read a few books, I write some other stuff and before you know it it’s April and…

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, Hyperion: 2009, Kindle edition Ok. Ok, so this wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it would be, but it didn’t exceed my expectations either. Meaning, this book is obviously attempting to complete the successful recipe of Harry Potter but it does not succeed because there is no recipe….

The City and the City by China Miéville

I struggled to get used to the language – the “idiosyncratic” writing – and become interested in the story per se. It took two thirds of the book to get me excited and wanting, desperately, to know more about the cities and Inspector Borlu. But I did and I did, and finally it came in…

The Three by Sarah Lotz

This was a… weird book. It feels like an epistolary novel, with multiple articles and transcriptions of Skype conversations, text messages, etc. OK, let’s start from the beginning – I promise, no spoilers. This is the story of four instantaneous plane crushes – on Europe, Japan, Africa, and America – and three child survivors that…

Literary Theory: introductions

While I was studying at the MA in Creative Writing we, naturally, had to read quite a bit about literary theory, genres and literary history. I’m going to mention just two textbooks which, I think, are great introductions in this maze of theory. The first one is Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton (1943)….

Presenting: the Book Riot Podcast

Here you can find the link to the podcast. As they say “Always books. Never boring”, and they’re quite right. I like listening to podcasts while I do various household chores (they’re such a bore on their own) or when taking a shower and, generally, doing something and need my arms and eyes focused. I…

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

This is a magnificent book by Shaun Tan – one of my favourite artists (along with Dave McKeen) – that I would recommend to anyone, even if they didn’t necessarily read anything in this genre. It is beautifully written; the main advantage, though, are the stories depicted on the images. The category may be graphic-novel…

The Fangirl in me

This is a ‘kind of’ feelview of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell but, mostly, it’s a rambling about my fan-crazed reading of books. This is a story about a young girl who loves the Simon Snow series of books, reads and writes fan-fiction and struggles to fit in the College she’s studying at. Simon Snow is a…

Black Heart (Curse Workers #3) by Holly Black

I can’t believe it’s finished. I saw that there is a fourth book scheduled and, though I’m concerned it won’t be as good, I’m really looking forward to reading it. I just love Cassel, he’s an amazingly interesting character and I can’t get enough of him trying to squirm out of harm’s way. He’s getting…

Red Glove (Curse Workers #2) by Holly Black

Spoilers all over the place! Be warned! 3.75 stars. I really enjoyed the second instalment of the Curse Workers series, but it felt like a middle book all the same. The surprises of the White Cat have now faded and I was just trying to discern what else is there to be told about the…