ATWOOD’S ARTISTIC ADVANTAGE

Source: buffalonews
Margaret Atwood didn’t study for a liberal arts degree with any idea that she was going to become a great writer –indeed, a dean of modern Canadian letters.

All that lay far in the future in her young adulthood; too far to imagine, even for an imagination as prodigious at the one that created “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Robber Bride” and “Oryx and Crake.”

But when her career did take her into writing, and across a variety of genres –from fiction and poetry to literary criticism and children’s literature and, now, blogging and Twittering –Atwood found her skills at boundary-crossing nimble and adept.

And her education, in English, philosophy and French, at Victoria College and then Radcliffe College, may be part of the reason why.

Read more here…

“THIS DREAM CALLED DEATH”, A NOVELZINE BY STEPHEN JANIS

Source: americanchronicle
Stephen Janis is an awarding-winning investigative reporter. The urban crime scene is his beat. His engrossing, surreal novel, “This Dream Called Death,” is his second book.

The fast-paced story is set in the decaying, crime-saturated and once-highly industrialized, “City of Balaise.” It´s a look into a grim, but maybe a not-too-distant future, where your worst fears of an ultra-controlling “Homeland Security-like” agency running amuck are a reality. Preventing crimes means the municipal bureaucrats, at the urgings of a paranoid “Deputy Mayor,” can check out your “dreams” for any “negative” thoughts, and if necessary, restrict your liberties.

Janis told the audience at his book reading, on Feb. 18, 2010: “Baltimore is Balaise!” He once wrote for the now-defunct “Baltimore Examiner” and he´s currently part of the staff of the “Investigative Voice.” If you ask me, he looks like a character right out of HBO´s “The Wire.” Janis had his book-reading at the “Atomic Books” store in quirky Hampden, a neighborhood that the film-making icon, John Waters, used as a base for so many of his comic flicks, such as “Cry-Baby.” In fact, “Atomic Books” is also a “mail drop” for Waters! (I´m not making this up.)

Read more here…

What did you think of today’s Book News? Are you a Margaret Atwood fan? Which of her books are your favorite? For me, A Handmaid’s Tale, hands down.

Are you a Stephen Janis fan?

Brought to you by OBS staff member Karolina

Summary
When Richard Mayhew moves from Scotland to London for work – he isn’t expecting much of a change. He’s a successful businessman, rents a flat in mid London, and has met a beautiful woman, who, despite their differences, has agreed to marry him. Little does he realise, that isn’t going to last very long. On the way to dinner with his fiance’s high-profile boss, a girl, beaten and covered in blood, falls through a wall and collapses at his feet. Ignoring his fiance’s calls, Richard picks up the bloodied girl and rushes her back to his apartment. The girl comes to the next day, and As Richard and the girl are getting to know each other, two men, Croup and Vandemar appear at his door looking for their ’sister’ who had run away. Richard warily turns the two men away, and the girl (who introduces herself as “Door”) quickly (via a pigeon) contacts a friend, the Marquis de Carabas, to take her home. Richard meets the Marquis, after following directions delivered by a rat, and takes him back to his place and to Door. Door apologises to Richard, and she and the Marquis leave. Once they disappear, Richard’s life is thrown into upheaval. All of a sudden he has no identity. His apartment is no longer his, his phone doesn’t work, he has no job, and, strangely enough – no one really seems to notice him when he tries to search for answers. This leads him to follow Door and the Marquis to ‘London Below’, a world beneath the streets of London. He travels with Door and the Marquis in hopes to reach the Angel Islington – who may have the answer to why Door’s family were murdered and why she is being hunted by Croup and Vandemar- as well as a way for Richard to find his way home.

Will Richard be able to regain the life he once had?

Review
“Neverwhere” started its’ life as a TV series written by Neil Gaiman and Lenny Henry, back in 1996. The story does not change between the TV series or the book adaptation, however, the book allowed Gaiman to expand and flesh out certain aspects of the story and characters that were missed in the TV series, as well as add scenes that were cut. There are parts of the book that read like a scene from a TV series, but this in no way deters the reader from the journey.

Gaiman’s writing style allows the reader to easily follow Richard and Door and their companions through the levels of London Below. The descriptions are simple yet vivid, and it is easy to picture what London looks like, even if the reader has not been there. London’s tube is almost a character in itself in this book; a lot of the characters having some connection to the places (Islington being a perfect example), and a lot of the action takes place there – the tube seeming to be the link between London and London Below.

The characters have their own charm to them. Richard is your bumbling, normal man who you would never expect to be a hero, Door is your mysterious young girl who is very much on the cusp of adult-hood and the Marquis de Carabas is aloof and fanciful- yet quite down to Earth and loyal, when the price is right. Croup and Vandemar are the dangerous, yet not very smart, killers after the heroes. There are many other varieties of characters that they come across along the way that bring another element to the story. All of them have their endearing qualities and are quite real in their actions and interactions.

Also Gaiman does a great job of re-imagining the ideas of a world within a world – and angels are usually a very good selling point for sci-fi fantasy books. He uses these two concepts to create a world that is known, yet unknown – beautiful and chilling all at once.

The story is not a new one, but the humour, the suspense and characters that Gaiman infuses into the story and gives life to makes it a very fun and new twist to it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and didn’t really want the journey to end. The ending is quite an open-ended one, allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions on what happens next – or for Gaiman to write a sequel, if he chooses to do so.

Neverwhere; Author’s preferred text, is what Neil Gaiman states in his introduction, the definitive version of Neverwhere as it combines the UK text and the US text, and he has made whatever other changes he felt the story needed in this version.

Brought by OBS staff member Farrha

Book Two: The Mortal Intstruments Series

Summary
Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what’s normal when you’re a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who’s becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn’t ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary’s only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.
To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father? (Source: Simonandschuster.com)

Review
It must be said, the second instalment of Cassandra Claire’s Mortal Instruments trilogy, City of Ashes, is in so many ways better than the first. The characters are more fleshed out, the story line running along more smoother in its complexity and it’s more of a story of its own. What I mean by that is, in the first novel, City of Bones, it felt like some subtle story elements were borrowed from other books, movies, etc. In City of Ashes the story finally takes to its own feet and begins a whole new journey on its own (even though those fairies are borrowed from Holly Black).

It’s always a good thing when you can’t decide who your favourite character is. Characters, like Magnus for example, thankfully have a bigger a role, with the story line not just following Clary. This for me is definitely a good thing. For me Clary unfortunately still seems very ignorant and slightly annoying. She’s a bit slow and somewhat melodramatic (refer to scene where Simon can not be covered from the sun after the big battle on the ship). Everyone around her is more level-headed.

I love Magnus and his philosophies in life, they have a bitter sweet truth about them that touches me. I also envy the boundless love Alec has for the people he cares about.

The strange love triangle does disturb me a little between Jace, Clary and Simon. It seems that the end of this novel leads to an impasse with this issue. Jace and Clary is still forbidden and tormenting while Simon and Clary were forced and now near impossible with his current situation. What to do? Who can I cheer for? In a way, it’s a good thing, I can focus more on the Daddy-Baddie, Valentine. Move over Luke and Darth Vader, Valentine’s is such a cruel evil thing that I can’t help but love to hate him. It’s a strange fascination, I know, my only wish is that there was more of him and he was slightly wittier. I imagine him pretty… don’t you?

The story and its characters are more clearly carving their own way through the novels rather than author clearly making her presence know. This has always been something I appreciate, when you barely think of the author until the end, at which point you sit for a moment and wonder at how brilliant they were to write so amazingly. Cassandra Claire for me has finally pulled this off.

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CONTEST ENDS AT THE END OF THE MONTH.

BOOK CLUB GIVEAWAY

Last month we gave away two copies of Percy Jackson in honor of our current book club. If you haven’t checked out this month’s book clubs here is what we are reading:
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Intertwined

This month (all month long) we will be holding a contest to win a copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. All you have to do is reply to this post with why you like the supernatural genre and your email (typed like krystal109 (at) openbooksociety (dot) com). We will choose two winners at random and contact you.

Enter HERE.

CONTEST ENDS FEBRUARY 20TH.

BOOK FACE OFF: MOST ROMANTIC GIVEAWAY

Vote for the Most Romantic supernatural book and let us know why you choose it, and you could win a copy of Twilight or The Time Traveler’s Wife!

Head to the forum and vote for your chance to win!

Learn more about the books and the voting HERE.

CONTEST ENDS AT THE END OF THE MONTH.

Brought by OBS staff member Katlyn

Summary
Sixteen-year old Cassie Renfield has seen the mark since forever: a glow around certain people as if a candle were held behind their back.

The one time she pointed it out taught her not to do it again, so Cassie has kept quiet, considering its rare appearances odd, but insignificant. Until the day she watches a man die. Mining her memories, Cassie realizes she can see a person’s imminent death. Not how or where, only when: today.

Cassie searches her past, her philosophy lessons, even her new boyfriend for answers, always careful to hide her secret. How does the mark work? Why her?

Most importantly, if you know today is someone’s last, should you tell?
Source: http://www.jennadolbooks.com/html/mark.html

Review
‘The Mark’ was truly an invigorating novel about making choices when faced with a seemingly impossible situation. Cassie Renfield already lost both her parents long ago and was living with her grandmother. She was born with a terrifying gift of seeing a glow (‘The Mark’) around people before they die. She was faced with the choice many times on whether to tell them or not. Would you?

I was absorbed in this book from the first page. This idea of seeing The Mark was so interesting and I could not wait to see where it lead our protagonist. All she wanted to do was have a normal teenage existence that would never be a choice for her because of this curse. She was burdened by her gift and the only person who believed her was about to become exposed to her terrifying world as well. Without giving too many spoilers, Cassie spent the summer away from her home and tried to start anew when she found a young man that understood her grown-up intellect. But when he was exposed to her secret the views of both of them related to each other changed drastically.

This novel took me to places I never expected and I was glad for it. Since I read so much I can usually tell the ending before halfway through but not in this case. There were many new directions the book pulled me in from chapter to chapter, I just went along for the ride and stopped trying to guess. By the end of the book I felt like Cassie aged about ten years with all the growing up she did over one summer. She was thrust into adult life by making very hard decisions and accepting those decisions that were made for her. This was a great character-development story that will stick in my mind for a long time.

I really enjoyed the characters in this story and how real they were. With Luke and Cassie it was a perfect relationship until her gift was exposed and she had to deal with her philosophical-obsessed boyfriend. Although he may have treated her different, he forced her to explore her gift and it took her places she might not have had the courage to explore before.

I was interested in the reaction of those that Cassie told about seeing The Mark and how they did or did not change their fate based on the knowledge. This was one of the toughest things to think about when the book was finished. There are two choices to make, to tell, or not to tell, but each yields many consequences. Then there is one theory that if you save someone’s life, does another person take their place in death? Cassie had to battle her conscious every time she saw The Mark, but neither choice she made could ever be the right one.

I higly recommend this thought-provoking novel and I guarantee that the story will linger in your mind long after the last word is read.

Brought to you by OBS Staff member Bertena Varney

Mina – The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly is a continuation of Mina’s tale from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. She begins with Mina’s recollection of her seduction of the vampire- Dracula. She is detailed in her desire as well as her fight against her new animalistic desire for blood.

But the story does not simply stop at the death of Dracula. It follows her struggle to return to a normal life and her struggle with her love with Jonathan. The story reads of mystery, stormy affairs, as well as the intense struggle with Mina’s pull to the undead. The back story and connection of Stoker’s characters are developed in this second book. It leaves you at the edge of your seat. There are several twists and turns that the reader is not quite sure where they are going. In the end, the story has an open ending that leaves the reader hanging.

There are contradicting reviews for this book but most love the fresh story from the woman warrior- Mina. She is a wonderful example of feminism at the time. She is the role model for women at the time- first to use the new technology- the typewriter, first to be a large part of a search for the vampire, and in the latest book- free to explore her sexuality openly. She pushed to the point of showing adultery and women’s pleasure of sex as acceptable.

It is a fun read that will allow women the pleasure to explore alternatives in the man’s world of Dracula.

Have you read Mina – The Dracula Story Continues?