Ice Song Kirsten Imani Kasai (Del Rey 2009)

The cover blurb attracted me like crazy when I read it, but I was disappointed in the novel as a whole despite its technical brilliance.

( cut for total and extreme spoilers )


Rosemary and Rue Seanan McGuire (Daw, 2009)


I'm only 2/3 of the way through, but am loving it so much I already started recommending it to people! Urban fantasy with one of the best constructions of Faerie I've seen: dark, dangerous, and at times heartbreakingly love, with the cost of blood never far away. Don't be put off by protagonist's almost too cute name (October, AKA Toby, Daye). She's a changeling--and in McGuire's storyverse, changelings are pretty much kicked around by everybody, including other (more powerful) changelings.

Two more to come: Local Habitation March 2010, and An Artificial Night Sept 2010.

ETA: McGuire's LJ! http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/

Always good on a rainy fall day, in the midst of grading (midterms ack), to remember why I love what I do.

I got copies of some of my books for next term. How great is it that in one class (a graduate course on critical literacies), I get to teach these two books (and four more of course) (these are just the two that have come in so far):

Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women by Jacqueline Jones Royster, and Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins?

*pets shiny new books and croons happily* (and they send them to me *free* when I assign them for class!)

Books I have read...of course as an English major I might be held to have an advantage...oh, well.  Interesting blend of popular and canon, books I've read in bold...

( Book Meme )

Saw caras_galadhon's and could not refrain...

( Guidelines: Leave the books you have in common, replace the ones you don't have with something that is, indeed, on your shelf )