Bookslingers Podcast

Creepy Schoolgirl Edition

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Wed, 2 Apr 2014 22:03:00 -0600

Were you frightened by Picnic at Hanging Rock?

(You bloody well should have been. That shiz was craaaaaaazy)

But wished that it had more caves and happened in the 1960s?

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky

Then this Australian melancholy school-girl disappearing act is for you.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Wed, 4 Sep 2013 11:45:00 -0600

The Ocean at The End of the Lane isn't quite like any other Neil Gaiman book I've read, and I've read them all.

It's spooky, but not about the dead, like The Graveyard Book. It occasionally fills you with existential dread, like American Gods, but on a much smaller, homelier scale. And it puts you in mind of secret worlds, but much earthier ones than Neverwhere. Also there's a lot more in the way of baked goods.

It's almost like Gaiman took all the fiddly, overarching complexities of all the mythologies in all his previous books and distilled them down, to big and vague-edged simple shapes that fit comfortably inside the perceptions of a seven-year-old boy like Ocean's narrator.

Said narrator is never named, but you forget about that almost immediately. It's not that you start to think of him as anyone in particular; more that he doesn't need a name. You know what you need to know about him: he is seven years old, he has parents and a sister, and he lives in a house in the country. He exists in a sort of negligent harmony with his environment the way most young children do, only noticing when something in that relationship changes that it was there at all.

In our narrator's case, the change comes the day their boarder steals the family's car and drives it down the lane to commit suicide inside it.

Things Start To Happen after that, and our narrator gets caught up in something much bigger than himself that may very well destroy him, helpless to extricate himself without the help of the three ladies I started calling the Triad in my head: Old Mrs. Hempstock, her daughter Ginnie Hempstock, and Ginnie's daughter Lettie, a girl a few years older than the narrator who says the pond in their back yard is an ocean. There is also a wicked nanny. Those are always fun.

It's a very grim sort of story; scary, but not nightmare-scary. More that feeling that you maybe shouldn't wander in the woods alone at night, because there are things out there that think you're delicious. It's a dark sort of story but doesn't exactly feel dark, even though most of it seems to take place at night. It's hard to explain, guys. But it didn't leave me feeling like I'd stumbled my way out of the dark. More like the darkness was not what I thought it was in the first place.

Nothing in this story is what it seems. The pond is not a pond. The wicked nanny fools both the narrator's parents and his sister into believing she is trustworthy and safe. The Hempstock ladies are something else entirely, something we're given the impression our poor mortal brains can't entirely comprehend.

Though you can always depend upon them for a good strong cup of tea, which isn't nothing.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Wed, 4 Sep 2013 07:00:00 -0600

Queen of Canada, Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam has dropped and is ready to traumatize your eyes.

Maggie "I Am the Danger" Atwood

If you haven't picked up an Atwood since high school, Book Riot has this handy dandy flowchart to meet all your Momma Maggie needs.

(But totally start with The Blind Assassin. It's so good)

Bookslingers in Brief #3

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Tue, 3 Sep 2013 15:00:00 -0600

Fantastic Mr. Fox: Theft is totally okay if you are stealing from terrible people. Notably alcoholics, short people and individuals who subsist on a diet of chicken are fair game.

Saga: Damn. It really is that good. It's been ages since something has not only deserved the hype but deserves more hype.

Also, that is one seriously naked space troll.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NAKED.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Tue, 3 Sep 2013 07:00:00 -0600

BEST NEWS EVERYBODY!

Tony Cliff is doing a second Deliah Dirk book.

If you haven't read Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant you need to get thineself to a book emporium. Because it is the prettiest, flashiest, funniest adventure comic that ever was.

Tintin can only dream of being as bad-ass as Deliah Dirk. Indiana Jones wishes he was a cool as her. Flashman's mustache droops in shame compared to the flip-off-to-gravity that her is hairdo.

You can check out the first few chapters on the Deliah Dirk website but really, you shouldn't be cheating yourself by not acquiring the entire book.

Also, FLYING SHIPS!

Review: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 2 Sep 2013 11:55:00 -0600

Every year when the Man Booker Prize longlist is announced, I think to myself: "I should read all those book and be an intellectual person that people see on the street and think: 'My goodness! There goes a well-read intellectual person.'"

This has never happened. The reading bit or the stranger admiration.

But, it's that time of year again and so I am here to talk about We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.

This is a tough book to talk about for many reasons.

Firstly, I don't often read or review Literature with a capital L. Because it is often Depressing with a capital Damn, Bad Stuff Happens To People (Most of Them Jerks).

Secondly, this is not a fun book to read.

We Need New Names is the coming-of-age novel of Darling, who is growing up in Paradise, a shantytown in Zimbabwe. Her life there is divided into before and now. Before, she went to the school because there were teachers and she lived in a house and her father was home and healthy. Then, the entire village was bulldozed - sometimes with the children still inside the houses.

Now, they live in tin shacks and the men are gone to far-off countries to work and her mother is at the border trying to make money. Darling and her friends (Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho and Stina) roam the streets of rich neighbourhoods to steal guavas.

Bulawayo is a powerful writer. There's a steel and a poetry to her writing that marks her as one of the up-and-coming writers of this generation. We Need New Names is her debut novel based on her Caine award-winning short story "Hitting Budapest." The novel does feel more like a connected collection of shorts instead of one cohesive story.

In fact, there's a lot of whiplash. One moment we are watching the funeral in the makeshift Paradise cemetery and then we're in America in "Destroyedmichygen." And here's where the book faltered for me. Her prose really sang when she wrote about Darling's life in Paradise. But when we get to America, we see Darling and her friends watching violent porn in the basement and the transition severs our connection to the story. Who is Darling now? What are her hopes and dreams and feelings? Within the roaming pack of children, we understand her. But when she is alone and separated from the group and her place, she becomes a ghost.

Trying to put in the book in context though, this review by Helon Habila really resonated:

I was at a Caine prize seminar a few years back and the discussion was on the state of the new fiction coming out of Africa. One of the panelists, in passing, accused the new writers of "performing Africa" for the world. To perform Africa, the distinguished panellist explained, is to inundate one's writing with images and symbols and allusions that evoke, to borrow a phrase from Aristotle, pity and fear, but not in a real tragic sense, more in a CNN, western-media-coverage-of-Africa, poverty-porn sense. We are talking child soldiers, genocide, child prostitution, female genital mutilation, political violence, police brutality, dictatorships, predatory preachers, dead bodies on the roadside. The result, for the reader, isn't always catharsis, as Aristotle suggested, but its direct opposite: a sort of creeping horror that leads to a desensitization to the reality being represented.

And We Need New Names occasionally reads like a checklist of TV Africa: political corruption, inept World Aid, duplicitous clergymen, crushing poverty, orphans, AIDS, incest, child rape, etc. The children are a little too on the nose with their political observations: "Stina said a country is a Coca-Cola bottle that can smash on the floor and disappoint you."

But no one captures the simple wickedness of children better and this book is cruel and cutting in all the right places. Even weeks after finishing the book, I find myself thinking about the contradictions and ugly truths that Bulawayo exposes.

Will definitely be picking up Bulawayo's next book when it comes out. That and about four fluffy cozy mysteries to read afterwards to maintain equilibrium to prevent the post-reading "I am just going to curl up in a quilt under my bed and numbly contemplate the cruelty of mankind."

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 12:24:00 -0600

Possibly the most brilliant literary interpretation you will see this morning (NSFW language):

SparkNotes can suck it.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 5 Aug 2013 14:08:00 -0600

Three Panel Book Review is my new favourite thing. You should check it out.

Lizzie agrees.

What has Miss Corene Been Up To While Waiting for the Doctor Who Announcement?

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Sun, 4 Aug 2013 12:00:00 -0600

Mostly reading cozy mysteries with the MOST RIDICULOUS TITLES:

Buried in a Bog by Sheila Connolly

In which someone is indeed someone is buried. In a bog.

Clobbered by Camembert by Avery Aames

Which contains within it the most absurd murder method ever written. Worth reading just to get to the reveal and the hysterical fit that follows.

A Spoonful of Murder by Connie Archer

Sounds like a prescription from an evil doctor: "Take one spoonful of murder and have your grief-stricken relatives call the funeral director in the morning."

But the All-Time Most Ludicrous Cozy Mystery Title has a clear winner:

Assaulted Pretzel by Laura Bradford

When my hold came in at the library for this book, my coworkers and I laughed so hard. So hard.

I love you, cozy mysteries. Never change.

Game of Thrones: Vampiric Edition

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 22:49:00 -0600

Looks like Keanu Reeves isn't the only immortal walking among us.

Michelle Fairley - CONFIRMED VAMPIRE

Romance and Smoochies: The Experience

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 11:31:00 -0600

So, this weekend I read my first romance novel.

Weirdly enough, the male model is not actually wearing a kilt.

I have never read a romance novel before.

Let me be perfectly clear: This is not because romance novels are inherently "lesser" or shameful or that there is anything laudable about not reading romance novels.

Romance novels are amazing. There are many stories of empowered ladies taking their sexuality into their own hands (heh) and it is a fascinating feminine literary space with so much variety that everyone can find something to pique their ... interest. There are also nipple swords.

But for a variety of reasons, I just never picked one up. So inspired by Smart Bitches and several fantastic friends as well as being challenged as a librarian to read outside my comfort zone, I picked one up.

Bad Boys in Kilts by Donna Kauffman (which I keep typing as Bad Boys in Quilts for some reason. Possibly because that sounds like a book full of soup and snuggling as a blizzard rages outside your cabin in Vermont) is a collection of three short stories surrounding hot Scottish brothers (each hotter than the last) in the remote Scottish village of Glenbuie.

There is the mechanic and the pub owner who have some shenanigans on a pool table, some verrah unprofessional business meetings between the distillery owner and the web designer and a writer who drives into a wall and the shepherd (for reals!).

In brief(s) (heh):
- There were a lot of nipples
- A whoooooooooole lotta nipples
- Those nipples tightened a lot. That sounds like it hurts.

It was a light, fluffy romp (heh) of a book. Not having any understanding of the genre, I can't really provide anything in the way of critical review.

But I can say that after reading it, I wanted to take a trip to Scotland a drive my rental car into a wall. In a good way.

Future Slings: The Fall Bue Collection

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:33:00 -0600

I like to think of fall books as books that are being released too far in the future for me to pre-order because I might move or get crushed by a bookshelf (occupational hazard of librarians).

It seems that the theme for this year's fall YA releases is blue. Moody, mysterious blue. Which will go nicely with my newly organized-by-colour bookshelves.

The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White (September 10)

By the author of the Paranormalcy (which is a bit of a mouthful to pronounce), The Chaos of the Stars features a protagonist who is the daughter of Egyptian gods. And, Egyptian gods like to keep it in the family.

Like, exclusively.

Everything stays in the family.

Everrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrything.

I'm talking Flowers in the Attic levels of togetherness.

Should be interesting.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black (September 3)

The blurb says that this is a tale of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing.

So, you know, Monday.

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger (November 5th)

The second book in Gail Carriger's steampunk YA Finishing School series.I predict that there will be curtsies, curiosities and conspiracies. And tea.

Lots and lots of tea.

Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan (September 24th)

I admit that I am kinda bummed about the cover (I love silhouettes) but looking forward to seeing Kami Glass, girl detective, again.

Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund (October 15th)

Set in the same universe as For Darkness Shows the Stars, Across a Star-Swept Sea looks to be a dystopian retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel with less wigs.

Pre-order/places holds at your local library today!

The Bookslingers Bookslinging Podcast #24: Murder, murder, murder

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Sat, 4 May 2013 15:07:00 -0600

Congratulations CLA Book Award winners! (Dear CLA, your website needs some work.)

It's TD Book Week, so check out bookweek.ca for events in your community.

If you don't know about WikiWars and the way female American Authors is being divided into "American Authors" and "American Women Authors," and you really enjoy being infuriated, you might want to check that out.

Puffin is releasing new editions of four beloved Canadian children's classics! Included are Awake and Dreaming by Kit Pearson, Mama's Going To Buy You A Mockingbird by Jean Little, Run by Eric Walters (which oops, neither of us has ever read) and Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker. And none of them has an inexplicable buxom blonde on the front, so they're already a vast improvement on the last time somebody tried to revive a Canadian children's classic *coughAnneofGreenGablescough*.

This week's book is the latest and greatest (maybe? my feelings are confused) in the Flavia De Luce series by Alan Bradley: Speaking from among the Bones. If that title gives you the shivers, you're already in just the right mood for this book.

Books from this week's podcast:

Speaking from among the Bones by Alan Bradley
The Fire Chronicle by John Stephens
Grave Mercy by Robin Lefevre
Scarlet by Marisa Meyer
The Madness Underneath - Shades of London #2 by Maureen Johnson
Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood
The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Fri, 3 May 2013 08:00:00 -0600

No doubt Miss Maiar is still recovering from the foaming-at-the-mouth bliss of watching Iron Man 3, so I am here to bring things back to the things that matter. Books.

And wait it out until I see it on Sunday.

The Edgar Award winners have been announced!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY CAREEEEEEEER?

Congrats to all the winners and the nominees.

I suppose this is just another reason to finally read Code Name: Verity. I know that it's going to be amazing but I am convinced that I am going to cry myself into an asthma attack.

Future Slings: Doll Bones by Holly Black

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Thu, 2 May 2013 21:43:00 -0600

Holly Black is cool.

She has a fantastic scary-book writer name, she wrote The Spiderwick Chronicles and YA books that I am too wimpy to read, and she sometimes wears a hat.

Black is back for middle grade audience (essentially I have created this entire blog post just to type that) on May 7th with Doll Bones.

It looks like another welcome addition to the highly specialized genre of "Creepy Ass Evil Doll Books for Children."

Because that is the look of the doll that children can't wait to bring into their bedrooms

I hated dolls.

Especially dolls with eyeballs. A well-meaning grandparent gave a three-year-old me a baby doll that had eyes that opened and closed depending on how you held it. It was a lovely present (although, as an older sister, I never saw the point of baby dolls as I could grab the real thing from the crib and roll them around in the dirt). I christened the doll as "Harry."

And then screamed that it was evil and locked it in the closet.

Needless to say, I will be reading Doll Bones in the daytime with one hand around a cricket bat. In case the dolls come for me.

Other classics of the Creepy Ass Evil Doll Genre (in no particular order of creepiness) are:

The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones - Dolls are trying to kill you and all your friends

Ragweed by Garth Nix - The moral of the story is, DOLLS ARE EFFING EVIL

The Dollhouse Murders by BettyRen Wright - Dolls are not only often gender stereotypes, they are also MURDERERS

Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy - THIS BOOK HAUNTED ME AS A CHILD. IT HAUNTS ME STILL.

Labour of... Gritted Teeth

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Wed, 1 May 2013 21:29:00 -0600

Happy May Day, Bookslingers!

Not only is this a day where you can unabashedly dance around a maypole (as much as such a thing can be done unabashedly) but it is also a day to celebrate that fact that children are no longer legally allowed to work in mines in the US and Canada!

Labour has penchant for toques

This is the day where we salute those who fought for the working day many of us "enjoy" today: eight hours of work, eight hours of pleasure/reading and eight hours of sleeping/reading.

And it was a fight. Peruse the Wikipedia article on History of Union Busting in the United States. And then this one.

So, having this in mind, you get a peak into the source of my ire towards Dear America: The Diary of Pringle Rose by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

Ostensibly, this is a book about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that killed hundreds of people and destroyed great swaths of the city. Unfortunately, the historical tragedy takes second billing to Pringle Rose's bizarre struggle with unions and domestic melodrama.

Part of my issue with the book was not the writing, which is solid and engaging, but with whose story was being told. It really brought me back to Bill Campbell's critique of another book in the Dear America series which tells the story of Japanese American Internment through the eyes of a priveledged, white protagonist. Though not to the same extent, the misplaced protagonist displaced the story from where it should have been.

Pringle Rose is the daughter of a rich mine owner in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The workers in his mines are on strike for better conditions and the situation is quickly descending into violence. Pringle is a world away in Merrywood School for Girls in Philadelphia but her life is overturned when her parents are killed in a mysterious carriage accident - her brother Gideon (who has Down Syndrome) is the sole survivor.

When her uncle arrives with his inevitably cruel wife, Pringle doesn't know if she can go on. Her only bright spot in a life darkened by grief is Rabbit, the handsome miner who courts her with Alice in Wonderland quotes. But when her aunt finds the letter to her friend detailing their little romance, Pringle decides to run away with her brother to Chicago to start a new life.

Seems like a hopping place... Hop right into the river, am I right, fleeing survivors?

She finds work as a nursemaid in the home of a labour newspaper publisher. But when their young male relative comes to visit, everything changes.

Oh, and Chicago burns to the ground.

So, why so grumpy Miss Corene?

Well, maybe because:

- Does Pringle really intellectually engage with the struggle of the workers? Nope. They are just a mass of threat to her family. Pringle hears about the working conditions and the mining disasters but doesn't sympathize or seek to understand what the unions are asking for. Why add the details to the story if you aren't going to engage with them?

- Why not tell the story from the point of view from an immigrant coming to the city? Or a child from one of those mines that Pringle's father owns who decides to leave that awful life for the city? Why did this story have to be told from a place of privilege and money? Does that help the story of the Great Chicago Fire? Pringle looses very little during the fire but what about the people whose lives were destroyed? Why not a story about picking up the pieces after the fire?

- Every person involved with a union is either charmingly childlike in their understanding of how the world works in compared with Pringle or treacherous, unreliable, dangerous jerks. That is all. Gwen and Peter Pritchard open their house to Pringle and her brother. They give them both lodging and employment. But the are portrayed as simplistic.However, Gwen's brother is revealed to be HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS the murdering murderer of Pringle's parents and Rabbit. Rabbit is a murderer and he is the only person in the book actually involved in strike. FOR REALZ. So when this is revealed, the Pritchards kick Pringle to the curb and she wanders into the Great Fire to work out her sadness. And the Pritchards are portrayed as the villains. Damn working people sending rich girls to fiery deaths!

Let's all read Lyddie by Katherine Patterson instead.

Fighting for your right not to die of byssinosis

And Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy.

Grumpily yours,
Miss Corene

OMG FLAVIA (Speaking from Among the Bones)

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Wed, 1 May 2013 11:33:00 -0600

GUYS DID YOU KNOW THERE WAS A NEW FLAVIA DE LUCE BOOK?

I try to keep up, but as I am not, like Corene, immersed in an environment when the publication dates of all and sundry new tween and YA novels come flying constantly at my face, I often miss them entirely, even when they are awesome amazing incredible clever murder mystery books about genius chemist girl detectives like the most excellent Flavia De Lucie in Alan Bradley's new Speaking from Among the Bones.

This time, I was unaware until some weeks ago when I saw a girl on the SeaBus reading it, and immediately rushed out to buy it.

And then all the bookstores were closed, so the next day I tried to get it out of the library, but all the copies were checked out and I am too impatient for waitlists about 60% of the time.

So I bought it at a tiny local shop on Vancouver Island while visiting my mother.

BUT THE POINT IS I have read it, it's amazing, and guys, this post could be full of so many spoilers, but I'm going to restrain myself because this book is slated to be Book of the Week in our next podcast. Cut for maybe, sort of, vaguely, potentially spoilers.

It will interest you to know, however, that this story begins with grave robbing, proceeds through a fascinating tutorial-via-murder-investigation on the inner workings of church organs and ends with a twist that made me nearly fall off of a couch, shout "WHAT?" in a much louder voice than is perhaps appropriate in the work lunchroom, and then immediately email Corene ordering her to read it immediately because no one else understood my feelings.

Read this book immediately. But if you, like me, are prone to loud emotional outbursts when books punch you in the feelings, maybe save the last three pages until you're not in a public place.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:37:00 -0600

So, in case you weren't aware, there is a book called I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems By Cats.

Yep.

That's a thing.

In honour of this, NPR has a delectable comic tribute to cats and the poets who loved them.

No surprise, Margaret "Momma can get nasty!" Atwood makes the list with this painfully true quote: "I have a lot of cats. What else can you do with a B.A. these days?"

I think she may have a shot as a professional goalie.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:14:00 -0600

Good morning, Bookslingers!

After a brief break (mostly to recover from the new Flavia de Luce book but more on that later), we have your mid-morning peruse.

Via Flavorwire a fantastic gallery of 25 Vintage Photos of Librarians Being Awesome.

Possibly the most awesome photo of the bunch is this one:

The caption reads: "The Librarian at Tuskegee and his assistant, 1910".

SOMEONE WRITE THIS BOOK NOW.

These two look like they got up to some cracking crime-fighting adventures between shelf reading and storytime.

Your Morning Peruse

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:00:00 -0600

Sebastian Faulks is writing an authorized Jeeves and Wooster sequel.

Let me express my feelings on the subject through the dramatic stylings of classically-trained actor, Alan Rickman.

Where'd You Go Bernadette?

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 4 Mar 2013 15:25:00 -0700

So, in short, Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple was not the book for me.

It was the cover for me.

Looks at those giant black sunglasses! The weird fringe! Not wild about the blow up doll mouth though.

This is the story of Bee, her Microsoft-drone father, their aspirational neighbor with a topiary fascination Audrey, and her mother, Bernadette Fox.

In the form of letters, emails, transcripts and newsletters, Bee tries to unravel the mystery of her mother and where she may have disappeared. This will not be easy.

Bernadette is a bundle of hates. She hates the gnat-like parents at the progressive Galer Street School with their classes on Expressive Movement. She hates the fact that Washington State is adjacent to Idaho. She loathes Seattle with its mountains and rain and clouds and pitching-in and yuppies and Microsoft and people. Bernadette has outsourced her entire life to Manjula in India.

To the earth-friendly hybird driving parents, she is a aberration with no sense of community. To her husband, she is not the woman he married. For Audrey, she is the owner of the blackberry bushes that are threatening her perfect Prospective Parent Lunch to attract Mercedes parents to the school.

For Bee, Bernadette is someone who always has her back. She sings to Beatles songs and is calm in a crisis and chaos in regular life. So when Bernadette disappears without saying a word to her, Bee knows that she has to track her down and bring her back home.

Like I said, this is not the book for me. The story of a girl tracking down her mother and a woman struggling against the expectations of a ridiculous, accessory-based society? Awesome.

However, that's only half the book.

The other half is a biting satire of Microsoft and the Subaru-parents of Seattle. Which pretty much sailed over my head. As someone who is at best indifferent and at worst, will walk away from any conversation that surrounds Seattle and Microsoft, this didn't connect. Satire depends on recognition - a common base upon which to launch your barbs. I didn't feel like Semple brought us into the world enough for us to laugh along with her at the ridiculousness of the Galer Street School parents and their marimba demonstrations.

Maybe because of this, the whimsy in the book felt a little forced. All the slavish TED Talk admiration and Victims Against Victimization groups and Antarctica cruises just didn't connect.

But what did connect was Bernadette. She is a tough character. Fueled by petty spite and smug superiority, she navigates her world with a mix of dismissive selfishness and all-consuming rage at small Seattle things (like her day-long rants about five-way stops). But as you read further, you beginning to understand the root of her unbalance, of her frustration about everything around her.

You might not like Bernadette but you do care where she is going.

Congrats to our Plain Scandal giveaway winners!

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:55:00 -0700

Many, many thanks to everyone who entered our A Plain Scandal and beeswax candle giveaway.

Our winners, as chosen randomly by Rafflecopter, are Suzan F and PJ! Look out for our missive in your inbox.

Again, thank you to everyone who entered the contest and I hope that you all pick up Amanda Flower's book from your local bookstore or library. It's a perfect anecdote for the February blues.

Your Morning PSA: Comics for the Great Good from Miss Maiar

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:00:00 -0700

And now, a public service announcement.

There's this amazing comic out right now. It's called Captain Marvel, and it features hotshot pilot and Avenger Colonel Carol Danvers, who used to be Ms. Marvel and recently got a promotion! (Captain. Not Ms. Captain.) It's written by the magnificent Kelly Sue DeConnick and it's clever and inspiring and the art in the first several issues is beautiful and has an amazing fan community. It is about 50% responsible for getting me back into comics after more than a decade away, and I wish that it had been around when I was a kid buying comics the first time around, because I probably never would have stopped. I wish I knew people with little girls because I would buy fifteen copies and shove them into their hands. I would do this standing on a street corner, handing it to total strangers, if I didn't think it would get me arrested.

Look at that cover. HOW COOL IS THAT.

Here's where the public service part comes in: if you have ever felt the slightest inclination to read about a brave, sassy, brilliant lady superhero who gets to wear a uniform that actually covers her body, mentor adorable children, be best bros with Captain America, and be the titular Mightiest Hero of the planet Earth, you should buy this comic.

And not just buy it: pre-order. That means: subscribe. Put it on a pull list at your local comic book store. Get it digitally via Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited or comiXology. Even if you've never walked into one before and find comic shops intimidating and weird (which is totally valid and I understand), I promise, this book is worth it.

The pre-order part is important, because sales from pre-orders (subscriptions and pull lists) are how big publishers (in this case Marvel) decide whether or not to keep producing a book, which is, yes, pretty archaic! And changing, slowly, but it is, currently, the way comics work. And the pre-sales matter because, well, this comic doesn't do as well as some other big Marvel titles, because it is a comic about a woman written by a woman and not all about explosions (which are great! I am not hating on explosions) and manpain (which also has its merits!) and is apparently largely being bought by women and girls and not quite as popular with certain dude-types (still the key demographic of comics), because... reasons. Some of the reasons as stated are frankly stupid and make me ragey so I'm not going to quote them here.

This book is important, because it's been a big part of getting more girls and women into comics recently, which is something we need! And is about a lady superhero who is super because she is awesome, not because she's somebody's girlfriend or sidekick. Comics can be amazing. They're about the vastness of human potential and imagination and finding strength in yourself and helping others for the sake of helping others and standing against evil, whether that evil is a robotic alien army bent on the domination of the Earth or some disrespectful jerk on the playground.

But even with all that going for them, the genre is historically not especially inclusive or welcoming of the female-identifying among us, (*coughDCComicscough*) which is something slowly changing, and most effectively changed by spending our money on stuff that is about and for women.

So buy this comic! It's amazing! I promise!

Future Slings

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:30:00 -0700

This is going to be a sweet couple of months.

Release date: May 7th

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a collaboration between Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks. Both of whom are awesome. It is currently being serialized here and both Bookslingers give it two enthusiastic slings. There are killer robots. Go now. We can wait.

March 5th

Linda Urban, one of Miss Corene's favourite authors because she writes quiet kids like no one else, is coming out with The Center of Everything.

April 2nd

The second Fair Assassin book by Robin LaFevers (sequel to Grave Mercy) is looking pretty fierce.

April 2nd

Lucy Knisley, possibly the most talented graphic artist/cartoonist/drawing person out there, details her culinary exploits. Guaranteed to make you hungry.

April 2nd

Stolen Magic by Stephanie Burgis is the third book in the ridiculously charming Incorrigible Series. So charming, people. So charming.

March 5

Miss Corene's favourite cozy mystery series (it's about tea! And tea!) has a new offering: Sweet Tea Revenge. SPOILERS: Tea will be served.

March 26th

Words that Miss Corene's credit card fears more than any other: NEW MAISIE DOBBS MYSTERY! Pre-ordering so fast. So fast.

The Bookslingers Bookslinging Podcast #23: Dragony intrigue and another in the long list of authors that make us feel inadequate

contact@bookslingers.com (Corene Brown and Arien Crossby) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:06:00 -0700

Aaaaaaaaaand we're back! Our first podcast of 2013! Wooooo!

Yes, our iTunes feed still appears to be broken. No, we don't know why. Yes, we are working on it. Sorry!

While we were away, the 2012 Cybils were awarded. The Early Chapter Book winner, Sadie and Ratz by Sonya Hartnett (illustrated by Ann James), includes the scariest shadow puppets in living memory.

Are you reading Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong? Because you should be. Written by Prudence Shen and drawn by Faith Erin Hicks! Politics! Chainsaws! Killer robots! Nothing can possibly go wrong!

The first Bookslingers contest is on now: enter to win a copy of A Plain Scandal by Amanda Flower! Find out more in the blog post.

Neil Gaiman's Chu's Day, the thoroughly adorable picture-book story of Chu, a little panda with a big sneeze, came out in January (illustrated by Adam Rex). His new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, comes out in June.

Like totally excellent radio plays filled with equally fabulous British actors like James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anthony Head (and that's just the top of the list!)? The new BBC radio play adaptation of Neverwhere debuts on March 16th. It will be available on iPlayer, which means that we non-Brits will even be able to listen to it!

Our book of the week is Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Dragons! A totally new take on dragons! No really! Also beautiful, beautiful worldbuilding and tension and politics and did I mention the dragons? And did I mention this is her debut novel? Welcome to the list of authors who make us feel inadequate, Rachel Hartman! I'm sure you, Kristin Cashore and Megan Whalen Turner will get along famously.

Books from this week's podcast:

The Fire Chronicles by John Stephens
The Gates by John Connoly
Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen
The Seeker by Isobelle Carmody
Ordinary Magic by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway
Swim the Fly by Don Calame
Beat the Band by Don Calame
The Appleseed Creek Mysteries by Amanda Flower
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Crown Jewel by Sherwood Smith
Grave Mercy by Robin Lefevre
A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson LeVine

Download the Bookslingers Podcast #23! (Right-click and Save As...)