November Book Reviews

My monthly review newsletter follows:

SEA OF TROLLS by Nancy Farmer

This marvelous fantasy novel based around Norse mythology is one of the best books I have read this year. Only an author as skilled and original as Nancy Farmer could present a ripping adventure about a
society obsessed with death and violence, in a way that combines humor with a very life-affirming philosophy. Her book is very well researched and a joy to read. I highly recommend this book to anyone over the age of 13.

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0689867441.asp


PREDATOR'S GOLD by Philips Reeve

This is the second book in Philips Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles set in a distopian future where cities roll about on wheels and devour one another in a fight for survival. PREDATOR'S GOLD is not as
violent as the first book MORTAL ENGINES, but it still has lots of adventure and high stakes melodrama. I am not a big fan of distopian fantasy and was very upset when Reeve killed off two of the young protagonists in the first book. However, they are inventive, engaging, and decently written. If you like this kind of book, you know who you are. I recommend it to people who enjoy that sort of thing. (I liked this one better than the first, and must admit I'm interested to see how the story turns out.)

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0060721936.asp


ANDY WARHOL: PRINCE OF POP by Jan Greenberg and Sandra
Jordan

This is the first nonfiction book I've ever reviewed.
It also happens to be one of the better biographies I have ever read.
Regardless of what you think of his art, Warhol's life is the stuff of
legend. The authors do a great job explaining some of the -isms of 20C art making it extremely accessible to the average reader. I hope Random House has the good sense to market this book to adults, and place it in museums across the US. Though the language is simple, this is a marvelous biography of an enigmatic celebrity. I wish my review was half as well written as the book.

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/038573056X.asp


Coming next month:
NORMAN TUTTLE ON THE LAST FRONTIER by Tom Bodett
THE BOOK OF DEAD DAYS by Marcus Sedgwick


In other reading news:

Some of you may remember how much I loved REALM OF
POSSIBILITY by David Levithan, which I reviewed for Teenreads this summer. I finally got ahold of his other book called BOY MEETS BOY, which is truly lovely.


A friend recommended a fascinating first novel in a new fantasy trilogy by Sarah Micklem called FIRETHORN. This book about camp-follower in a feudal world is both graphic and grim; but it is a gripping read and has a fascinating cosmology. I usually don't recommend series without having read them all, but this book is a stand-out in a world of
cookie-cutter fantasy. For more information on the book and the series see Micklem's website:

http://www.firethorn.info/


I've also been indulging in a a stack of Mary Stewart's gothic thrillers
that I found in a used bookstore. These books from the sixties, which
always involve an innocent British girl in peril in exotic settings, are one of my guilty pleasures.

Tompkin Lost Frog

Okay, I just had to post these links, even if, as usual, I'm the last on the net to find them:

Turkey Flavored Soda

http://www.jonessoda.com/files/turkey04.html


And the Lost Frog links ala 'All Your Base'

http://lostfrog.org/index.html

Just keep clicking on the images. There are twentysome images. My favorite has to be the Nabokov one. I should probably sumbit a Frog Shakespearean Sonnet.