book stuff
Jan. 4th, 2005 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyThis weekend is my annual book swop. Either the third or fourth, I'm not totally sure. This is a neat tradition where my sweeties and closest friends get together and exchange books that we have read and liked. I already have my book picked out, and so does my partner. Hope it'll be fun!
I used to be really into amazon recommendations. Does it seem to anybody else like this service has fallen from its glory days? I told amazon I liked the Bernie Rhodenbarr series. It has suggested other books in that series, but for a while, I didn't even know that the author had other series. I eventually found out from his website. Hello, amazon, prime marketing customer? Hello? I wish it would go back to maing recommendations based on "customers who bought this also bought..." which gave some really neat, sometimes oddball recommendations.
In the spirit of the event, some more reviews of current reads:
_World Without End_ by Sean Russell
This book was one in an extensive list of books dealing with the magick in nature, found in the introduction of _Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest_ (which volume I cannot recommend highly enough). I finished this book a few days ago. I liked it but it only tantalized, it didn't reveal much. Definitely a part of a series, and with this high degree of complexity, I worry about the Xfiles syndrome (where the creator decides that it's too much work to resolve everything, so instead they just create more and more puzzles - Robert Jordan fell victim to this a long time ago). The third book isn't out yet - maybe there won't even be one - so I'm reluctant about continuing and getting even more anxious read an outcome that may not be forthcoming.
_A Letter of Mary_ by Laurie R King
I love this series. I've been reading each book in two days or less, and loving every minute. For anyone who hasn't encountered it, it's a Sherlock Holmes retelling where he gets a younger female partner. The first book was _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_. The themes of women's spirituality and trauma recovery that run through the series are pretty neat, and King is great at making puzzles that are hard to see through. Also, she does package endings, which I'm really into, considering their rarity in the real world.
_The Psychic Vampire Codex_ by Michelle Belanger
I've been reading this book for a while, I'm a bit more than halfway through. It has some interesting ideas in it, and unique suggestions for energywork, but it also has some big problems. Especially in the area of ethics. (I know there are probably a lot of people who view this topic with a lot of skepticism, so I won't blather on about that.) There's also a big elitism thing going on, not to mention some stuff about pre-Egyptian vampire temples which makes my bullshit detector go "bonk! bonk!"
Raven Kaldera has a book on the topic of psychic vampires coming out, with a strong focus on ethics - I've been lucky enough to preview it and it's terrific. Hopefully that will be available soon. I think the two books will complement each other very well.
_A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe_ by Michael Schneider
This book, like several good ones I've read recently, was recommended in _The Second Circle: Tools for the Advancing Pagan_ by Venecia Rauls. I am only a little ways through it, but - woo hoo sacred geometry! I am very much enamored of the idea that there's more to numbers than I realized. Hopefully it will continue to be readable and interesting. A cool quote: "Sacred space is within us. Not in our body or brain cells but in the volume of our consciousness. Wherever we go we bring the sacred within us to the sacred around us."
I used to be really into amazon recommendations. Does it seem to anybody else like this service has fallen from its glory days? I told amazon I liked the Bernie Rhodenbarr series. It has suggested other books in that series, but for a while, I didn't even know that the author had other series. I eventually found out from his website. Hello, amazon, prime marketing customer? Hello? I wish it would go back to maing recommendations based on "customers who bought this also bought..." which gave some really neat, sometimes oddball recommendations.
In the spirit of the event, some more reviews of current reads:
_World Without End_ by Sean Russell
This book was one in an extensive list of books dealing with the magick in nature, found in the introduction of _Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest_ (which volume I cannot recommend highly enough). I finished this book a few days ago. I liked it but it only tantalized, it didn't reveal much. Definitely a part of a series, and with this high degree of complexity, I worry about the Xfiles syndrome (where the creator decides that it's too much work to resolve everything, so instead they just create more and more puzzles - Robert Jordan fell victim to this a long time ago). The third book isn't out yet - maybe there won't even be one - so I'm reluctant about continuing and getting even more anxious read an outcome that may not be forthcoming.
_A Letter of Mary_ by Laurie R King
I love this series. I've been reading each book in two days or less, and loving every minute. For anyone who hasn't encountered it, it's a Sherlock Holmes retelling where he gets a younger female partner. The first book was _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_. The themes of women's spirituality and trauma recovery that run through the series are pretty neat, and King is great at making puzzles that are hard to see through. Also, she does package endings, which I'm really into, considering their rarity in the real world.
_The Psychic Vampire Codex_ by Michelle Belanger
I've been reading this book for a while, I'm a bit more than halfway through. It has some interesting ideas in it, and unique suggestions for energywork, but it also has some big problems. Especially in the area of ethics. (I know there are probably a lot of people who view this topic with a lot of skepticism, so I won't blather on about that.) There's also a big elitism thing going on, not to mention some stuff about pre-Egyptian vampire temples which makes my bullshit detector go "bonk! bonk!"
Raven Kaldera has a book on the topic of psychic vampires coming out, with a strong focus on ethics - I've been lucky enough to preview it and it's terrific. Hopefully that will be available soon. I think the two books will complement each other very well.
_A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe_ by Michael Schneider
This book, like several good ones I've read recently, was recommended in _The Second Circle: Tools for the Advancing Pagan_ by Venecia Rauls. I am only a little ways through it, but - woo hoo sacred geometry! I am very much enamored of the idea that there's more to numbers than I realized. Hopefully it will continue to be readable and interesting. A cool quote: "Sacred space is within us. Not in our body or brain cells but in the volume of our consciousness. Wherever we go we bring the sacred within us to the sacred around us."