Get Lost in Literature

This week's theme is: Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List.  These are my picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . Amazon recc'd 1&2 The Black by Paul E Cooley.  Chronology from Curiosity Quills Press...appears to be a book of scifi/fantasy short stories from an Indie-house, but I figure it's a good way to find a new favorite author. 3, 4, 5 are Upcoming Releases  Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs.  Himmelstrand by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Waiting for the English translation.  The Map of Chaos by Felix J Palma. English translation. 6 & 7 recc'd by Friends  The Lost City of Z by David Grann.  Station Eleven by Emily St John 8, 9, & 10 Goodreads recc'd  Ashfall by Mike Mullin  Stray Souls by Kate Griffin.  City of Stair by Robert Jackson Bennett

I was in the mood to read a classic, so this week's quote comes from Frankenstein; Or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. "The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery."   Quotable Thursday originally brought to you by  Bookshelf Fantasies .

"'Destiny’ is the state of perfect mechanical causation in which everything is the consequence of everything else. If choice is an illusion, what’s life? Consciousness without volition."  Joe Spork has walked the straight and narrow his whole life, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, working as a clockwork repairman. He's been trying to hide from the legacy left to him by his father, Matthew, who lived his life at the head of organized crime; Joe doesn't want to be his father's son. But when a friend brings in a strange mechanical book for Joe to repair, strangers start taking an interest in the horologist. And when that mechanical book triggers a hive of mechanical bees to take flight, someone frames Joe for terrorism, making him flee from the life he's lived to the life he tried to hide from. Ever hear the expression "show, don't tell," with regards to writing? This book was fabulous, in that respect. Nick Harkaway does...

Reading Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker. So far I'm loving it. "Metal like soft cotton, not linked but threaded; warming in his hand: Woven Gold. The trick is whispered from time to time in kasbahs and jewellers' shops and conventions and gatherings and markets, almost revealing itself and then vanishing so thoroughly that many consider it a fiction." Although it does raise the question: Is a story Steampunk if it takes place in Modern day instead of Victorian era? Quotable Thursday originally brought to you by  Bookshelf Fantasies .

Charles Nancy is an unlucky sort of fellow; he prefers to be called Charles or Charlie but everyone calls him Fat Charlie, whether he likes it or not because that was the name his father gave him. With a wedding on the horizon, Rosie thinks it's time for Fat Charlie to start mending those old embarassing bridges, and invite his family to the wedding. Unable to say no, Charlie reaches out to Mrs Higgler, a family friend who might know how to contact his old man... But he's too late. Mr Nancy is dead and Mrs Higgler's got news for Charlie. His father wasn't just a trickster, he was trickster God and Charlie has a long lost brother who communicates through spiders... This book started out laugh out loud funny. I loved the glimpse into what an ancient God's idea of parenting would be, and those parenting skills then topped by the peculiar circumstances of death. And its a nice mirror of reality; it sometimes seems like parents' job to embarrass their children ...