This week we survey our bookshelves in our nerdiest game ever: Book Bingo! Get a sample of our current reads and our to-be-read list. Play along and let us know what’s on your shelf. Learn about our upcoming nerd connoisseur guest. Go cloud spotting. Read some Proust (please!). Engage in total book mayhem.
Welcome to Read.Write.Repeat podcast.
This month we will be giving away the very first comic in the Saga series. To enter, simply follow us on social media and interact with us or leave us a review! We explain more about how the giveaway works toward the end of the show notes.
Listeners weigh in:
Let us know what is on your bookshelf: Designate shelves 1-6 and the draw the following books from each shelf:
- Book 15 from shelf 1.
- Book 6 from shelf 2.
- Book 10 from shelf 3.
- Book 1 from shelf 4.
- Book 4 from shelf 5.
- Book 7 from shelf 6.
Let us know in the comments section below, or by tagging us on social media! Your response might be featured on an upcoming show, and you will be entered into our monthly giveaway!
Engage with our upcoming guest, Dylan:
Dylan is a science fiction, fantasy, and comic book connoisseur. We are taking questions for him now!
- Have him make a book recommendation for you: Tell him one author, theme, or literary element you like.
- Have him assess a current read by Dylan standards: He will look at the tactile experience of the book, drawings, maps, cover, and invented language.
Let us know in the comments section below, or by tagging us on social media! Your response might be featured in Dylan’s episode, and you will be entered into our monthly giveaway!
To help you find the book you’ve forgotten the title and author to:
- Name that Book: http://www.librarything.com/groups/namethatbook
- Book Sleuth: http://forums.abebooks.com/discussions/AbeBookscom_BookSleuthreg/abesleuthcom?redirCnt=1&=
Kaisha’s Books
The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown
Thing is a young girl who hides beneath a mask. Her companions
include a crow, a toad, a goldfish, and a kitten, each in some way handicapped. Never has there been a more unlikely band of unheroic heroes. Yet each needs the other to discover what they all seek — the Dragon of the Black Mountain, who can restore them to health and happiness.
Buy it here.
Vorrh by Brian Catling
Prepare to lose yourself in the heady, mythical expanse of The Vorrh, a daring debut that Alan Moore has called “a phosphorescent masterpiece” and “the current century’s first landmark work of fantasy.”
Next to the colonial town of Essenwald sits the Vorrh, a vast—perhaps endless—forest. It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes memory. Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart. Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse. Armed with only a strange bow, he begins his journey, but some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him. Around them swirl a remarkable cast of characters, including a Cyclops raised by robots and a young girl with tragic curiosity, as well as historical figures, such as writer Raymond Roussel and photographer and Edward Muybridge. While fact and fictional blend, and the hunter will become the hunted, and everyone’s fate hangs in the balance, under the will of the Vorrh.
Buy it here.
The Cloud Collector’s Handbook by Gavin Pretor Pinney
The perfect incentive for keeping your head in the clouds, The Cloud Collector’s Handbook is a whimsical guide to the wonders of the sky. Throughout, author and cloud expert Gavin Pretor-Pinney catalogs a variety of clouds and gives readers points for spotting them and recording their finds. This fun and useful book features gorgeous full-color photographs that showcase a new type of cloud on every spread, from fluffy cumulus to the super rare horseshoe vortex to the wispy noctilucent clouds that hang at the fringes of space. Sure to be a hit with both aspiring and seasoned cloud gazers, this clever handbook will have everyone looking up.
Buy it here.
Horseman On The Roof by Jean Giono
Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono’s perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. This novel, which Giono began writing in 1934 and which was published in 1951, expanded and solidified his reputation as one of Europe’s most important writers.
This is a novel of adventure, a roman courtois, that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who has been forced to leave Italy because of a duel, and is returning to his homeland by way of Provence. But that region is in the grip of a cholera epidemic, travelers are being imprisoned behind barricades, and exposure to the disease is almost certain.
Angelo’s escapades, adventures, and heroic self-sacrifice in this hot, hallucinatory landscape, among corpses, criminals and rioting townspeople, share this epic tale.
Buy it here. Buy the movie here.
A Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright
It is difficult to think of a more quintessential symbol of the British countryside than the British Hedgerow, bursting with blackberries, hazelnuts and sloes, and home to oak and ash, field mice and butterflies. But as much as we might dream about foraging for mushrooms or collecting wayside nettles for soup, most of us are unaware of quite how profoundly hedgerows have shaped the history of our landscape and our species. One of Britain’s best known naturalists, John Wright introduces us to the natural and cultural history of hedges (as well as ditches, dykes and dry stone walls) – from the arrival of the first settlers in the British Isles to the modern day, when we have finally begun to recognise the importance of these unique ecosystems. His intimate knowledge of the countryside and its inhabitants brings this guide to life, whether discussing the skills and craft of hedge maintenance or the rich variety of animals who call them home. Informative, practical, entertaining and richly illustrated in colour throughout, A Natural History of the Hedgerow is a book to stuff into your pocket for country walks in every season, or to savour in winter before a roaring fire.
Buy it here.
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
In 1937, the coming war is only a distant cloud on Britain’s horizon. As the Cazalet households prepare for their summer pilgrimage to the family estate in Sussex, readers meet Edward, in love with but by no means faithful to his wife Villy; Hugh, wounded in the Great War; Rupert, who worships his lovely child-bride Zoe; and Rachel, the spinster sister.
Buy it here.
Kelsey’s Books
Now Write: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror edited by Laurie Lamson
Featuring speculative fiction-writing exercises from Harlan Ellison (R), Piers Anthony, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, screenwriters of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek: The Next Generation, and many more.
The fifth volume in the acclaimed Now Write! writing-guide series offers a full toolbox of advice and exercises for speculative fiction writers hoping to craft an engaging alternate reality, flesh out an enthralling fantasy quest, or dream up a bloodcurdling plot twist, including:
-Harlan Ellison (R), on crafting the perfect story title
-Jack Ketchum, on how economy of language helps create a truly frightening tale
-Piers Anthony, on making fantastical characters feel genuine and relatable
Among the other writers included are: Steven Barnes, Peter Briggs, David Brin, Sara B. Cooper, Brian James Freeman, Joe R. Lansdale, Bruce McAllister, Vonda N. McIntyre, William F. Nolan, Michael Reaves, Melissa Scott, Michael Dillon Scott, Vanessa Vaughn and others.
This collection of storytelling secrets from top genre writersincluding winners of Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Bram Stoker awardsis essential for any writer looking to take a leap beyond the ordinary.
You can buy this book here.
The High King’s Tomb by Kristen Britain
More than a thousand years ago the armies of the Arcosian Empire, led by Mornhavon the Black, crossed the great sea and tried to conquer the land of Sacoridia using terrible dark magic. Eventually Mornhavon had been captured, and his evil spirit imprisoned in Blackveil Forest, protected by the mighty D’Yer Wall; and in the centuries since the war’s end, knowledge of the working of magic had disappeared from Sacoridia.
Karigan G’ladheon was now a seasoned Green Ridera member of the magical messenger corps of the king. But during her first year as a Rider, a rogue magician had cracked the D’Yer Wall. The spirit of Mornhavon, sensing the weakness, had begun to wake, seeking vengeance. Karigan had managed to transport the spirit of Mornhavon into the future, buying valuable time for her king and country. But how far in the future was Mornhavon now? There was no way to tell.
And though Karigan and her fellow Riders scoured the land searching for lost magical knowledge, they were unaware of a threat to their kingdom that lay far closer: the descendants of ancient enemies had spent generations honing their powers of dark magica force against which the Sacoridians had no defense. The High King’s Tomb is the thrilling third installment of the Green Rider series.
You can buy this book here.
Gephyromania by TC Tolbert
Poetry. LGBT Studies. In GEPHYROMANIA (literally, an addiction to or an obsession with bridges), Tolbert’s choice isn’t between female and male, lover and self, or loss and relief, but rather to live (willingly, intentionally) in the places where those binaries meet. Questions arise: Is a bridge simply an attempt to connect one (seemingly) stable body back to itself? Whose body—which embodiment—is absent when we say “I miss you”? And who is adored when we say “I love”? Sensing the parallels between a lover who leaves and his own female body as it chooses (as he chooses for it) to recede, the poems in GEPHYROMANIA explore the spaces between, among, across, and even within bodies.
Buy it here.
The Fluency of Light by Aisha Sabatini Sloan
In these intertwined essays on art, music, and identity, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, the daughter of African American and Italian American parents, examines the experience of her mixed-race identity. Embracing the far-ranging stimuli of her media-obsessed upbringing, she grasps at news clippings, visual fragments, and lyrics from past and present in order to weave together a world of sense.
Art in all forms guides the author toward understanding concepts like blackness, jazz, mortality, riots, space, time, self, and other without falling prey to the myth that all things must exist within a system of binaries. Recalling her awkward attempts at coolness during her childhood, Sabatini Sloan evokes Thelonious Monk’s stage persona as a metaphor for blackness. Through the conceptual art of Adrian Piper, the author is able to understand what is so quietly menacing about the sharp, clean lines of an art gallery where she works as an assistant. The result is a compelling meditation on identity and representation.
Buy it here.
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust
One hundred years have passed since Marcel Proust published the first volume of what was to become a seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. In the intervening century, his famously compelling novel has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages. English-language readers were fortunate to have an early and extraordinarily fine translation of the novel from Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff. With the passage of time, however, the need for corrections, revisions, and annotations to the Scott Moncrieff translation has become apparent.
Esteemed Proust scholar William C. Carter celebrates the publication centennial of Swann’s Way with a new, more accurate and illuminating edition of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time. Carter corrects previous translating missteps to bring readers closer to Proust’s intentions while also providing enlightening notes to clarify biographical, historical, and social contexts. Presented in a reader-friendly format alongside the text, these annotations will enrich and deepen the experience of Proust’s novel, immersing readers in the world of an unsurpassed literary genius.
Buy it here.
Plays of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
These critically hailed translations of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and the other Chekhov plays are the only ones in English by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor.
Without compromising the spirit of the text, Paul Schmidt accurately translates Chekhov’s entire theatrical canon, rescuing the humor “lost” in most academic translations while respecting the historical context and original social climate.
Schmidt’s translations of Chekhov have been successfully staged all over the U.S. by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences. They are also accurate — Schmidt has been described as “the gold standard in Russian-English translation” by Michael Holquist of the Russian department at Yale University.
English translations of Chekhov’s classic plays by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor. Because of Paul Schmidt’s expertise in both the theater and Russia, these translations preserve the social context of Chekhov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD, THREE SISTERS, THE SEAGULL, UNCLE VANYA, and other works, while restoring the vitality and humor that are often lost in academic translations.
Buy it here.
Connect and Win!!
- Don’t forget to enter our giveaway for November. This month we will be giving away the first in the Saga series. To enter, simply follow us on social media and interact with us or leave us a review!
- You can find other Giveaways on the giveaways tab and in the Give us a Shout tab on our website. Be sure to check those out. We ship worldwide, so don’t hesitate to enter our giveaway.
- If anything sparked an idea for you, or you have thoughts or ideas about what we should discuss next. Let us know. Fill out our survey for a chance to win cool prizes!
The Vorrh is an excellent novel! It’s just about the most bizarre thing I’ve ever read. Can’t recommend it enough.