Monday, November 14, 2011

Book Review 18 of 24 (Scrapbooks Are Paper Blogs)

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt
By Caroline Preston
Barnes & Noble link

(Fun fact: I just found out about this book earlier yesterday at my job. Read it in two sittings and decided that it was an appropriate last review.)


When given the tools, anyone can become the person they were meant to become. The influences could come from anywhere, but usually you can discern the usual suspects. For the narrator of The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, this was an easy one: her own parents. But it takes more than that to get this girl going. Adventures await her as she leaves the farming countryside of New Hampshire for the wide-eyed wonder of New York State in this uniquely-presented tale.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Book Review 17 of 24 (Atwood Schools Everyone About Sci-Fi)

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination
By Margaret Atwood
Barnes & Noble link

(Fun fact: the main reason I joined Twitter was because Margaret Atwood had one and enjoyed using it.)

When you want to learn about a genre, you normally go towards the genre's representative books. In this case, we are talking about science fiction. Go for the popular, we have Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick. Wanna get esoteric? Walter M. Miller, C.S. Lewis, and J.G. Ballard. How about the ladies? Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, and Ursula K. Le Guin. You have a lot to choose from.

In this case, let's go with Margaret Atwood. She has written the chilling The Handmaid's Tale, the apocalyptic tale of Oryx and Crake and its sequel The Year of the Flood. But she ain't through. She has more to say about science fiction than her novels could contain. With In Other Worlds, Atwood puts together all she learned about sci-fi and schools you good.