What I've Been Reading: City Noir

Istanbul Noir edited by Mustafa Ziyalan and Amy Spangler

Ok, do you all know about Akashic Books City Noir series? So far there are sixty-nine titles (I think I counted that correctly)-- each is an anthology of noir short stories, taking place in a specific location, with the stories written by authors who are from there or live there, or write about the city a lot. Many of the volumes are international--if I counted correctly, 24 of the currently-out titles are international, with locations ranging from Paris to Manila, Kingston to St. Petersburg, Tehran to Copenhagen. (There are also 3 titles coming out this summer-- Providence, Beirut, and Marseille-- and another 21 that have been announced. Of the 24 that aren't out yet, 16 are international.)

I love this series so hard. It's the best of armchair travel, because you're going into neighborhoods and situations you don't usually get (because, well, noir). As the authors are mostly local, or write like a local, the city is the setting, and it's a character that links the stories, but there's no expositional tour guide voice that can run through books that take place in a location the readership might not know very well. There's just the city and culture in the background and part of the story, which in a way is more enlightening. Between all the stories, you usually get a wide range of neighborhoods, people, and economic status--and not a lot of the touristy stuff we usually see. While the concept itself is diverse, there's also tremendous diversity within each volume. Also, with the international ones, you get to read a lot of authors that haven't published in English before, or that you might not otherwise have come across.

So, as much as I read and love this series, I haven't reviewed it yet because, well, Istanbul Noir is the only one I've actually finished. Not because the others aren't good, but they're short stories! So I tend to dip in and out of the collections, and then they're due back at the library, and so I'll return it and pick up a new city. I've found short stories are the best bus reading, because that's usually how long I have. I haven't really gotten into short stories before, but I think my friend and co-worker Megan put a finger on it when she explained why she doesn't like them--they're too short for her to really connect to and like a character. That's the best part about noir--you're not really supposed to like most of these people.

So! If you're looking for some great short stories by authors you may not know, or want a new look at a city you love, or a very different introduction to one you've never been to, this series is for you.

Also, what cities do you wish they covered? Personally, I'm crossing my fingers for Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong (and maybe a separate Kowloon volume, like they split up the boroughs of New York City?), Cape Town, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Karachi.


Book Provided by... my local library

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Zombies vs. Unicorns

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

Which is better, zombies or unicorns? Black (team unicorn) and Larbalestier (team zombie) have picked their teams of all-star YA authors and are battling it out.

At it's surface, it is a strong collection of short stories about zombies or unicorns. Stand-outs include Alaya Dawn Johnson's zombie entry "Love with Tear Us Apart" about what happens when zombies love humans, Carrie Ryan's "Bougainvillea" a zombie story set in the same world as Forest of Hands and Teeth, Margo Lanagan's deeply disturbing unicorn story "A Thousand Flowers", Scott Westerfeld's "Inoculata" about teens flirting with zombie-ism the same way today's teens flirt with pot, Meg Cabot's hysterical "Princess Prettypants" about a girl who's pretty pissed off she's getting a farting unicorn instead of a car for her birthday, and Libba Bray's "Prom Night" about teenagers trying to hold it together when the adults all turned to zombies.

Despite the fact that the I have more favorite zombie stories than unicorn ones, I'm firmly TEAM UNICORN. I wasn't before I read it. Before I read it, I thought "seriously? Zombies versus Unicorns? What kind of contest is that? Zombies! Duh!" but these stories made me see unicorns in an entirely different light. Even when their farts smell like flowers and sound like windchimes and they have stupid names like Princess Prettypants, unicorns kick a lot of ass. There's also a much greater variety in types of unicorns. Zombies are... zombies. They get boring after awhile. With the exception of "Love Will Tear us Apart" we didn't meet that many zombies in the zombie stories. We met people dealing with zombies, living a life of fear in a zombie-filled world. The zombies don't have the same personality and skills that the unicorns do.

TEAM UNICORN.

And, even though this book is mostly great stories, but favorite parts were the between the stories, when Black and Larbalestier debate the unicorn/zombie question in the story introductions. Hilarious.


ARC Provided by... publisher, at ALA

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Pick-Up Game

Pick-Up Game: A Full Day of Full Court ed. by Marc Aronson and Charles R Smith, Jr.

9 poems, 9 photographs, 9 stories, 10 authors, 2 editors, and 1 full day of basketball.

These short stories follow the action of a day of basketball at the Cage, which is the West 4th Street Court near Washington Square in Manhattan. We have new players, good players, bad players, players who talk a good game, girls who want to know players, film students, friends, and old-timers watching the action, shooting the balls and shooting the breeze.

There's more than enough basketball action here to entice your reluctant readers with a good sports book, but the writing, diversity of characters and voices (in every single way), and different takes on the same people and events will draw in your anti-sports book people. I mean, you're looking at writers like Walter Dean Myers, Sharon G. Flake, Joseph Bruchac, Adam Rapp and Rita Garcia-Williams. How can you NOT find something to enjoy about this?

I especially enjoyed Charles R. Smith Jr's poems and photos that started each story. They helped keep the action moving as we shifted focus and voice, but I also enjoyed how different the poems were-- different styles and voices and perspectives as well. The photographs were a great design addition.

There are reoccurring characters in the book and I like Aronson's note at the end that gives some of the history (and the real-life legends mentioned) as well as a bit about the process. Aronson and Smith chose the setting and date and gave each author a time slot. Author's couldn't start writing until the story before theirs was done, so they knew who was on the court and who was playing well that day. A great way to write a collaboration that turned out really well.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Lips Touch: Three Times

Lips Touch: Three Times Laini Taylor

Three stories, three kisses, three women marked with dark and supernatural forces.

Kizzy's the perfect target for the goblins. Though she lives in modern times, she should know better. Her family is weird, her family believes. Her desire to be normal is what makes her a perfect target. But, when they come for her, will she notice? Will she even care?

In the days of the British rule over India, a bargain with a demon saves twenty-two children from an earthquake, but leaves one cursed with the most beautiful voice, but anyone who hears it will die. She grows up, silent, not wanting to test it, to see if it's true, but curses can't be real, can they?

The Druj are immortal, magic-working, shape-shifters. They keep human children as pets. A girl-mother and her unborn child have escaped, but fourteen years later, there will be a price to pay, and it must be paid.

Every story starts with illustrations, a wordless picture book introduction with backstory.

Such a wonderful book that lives up the hype and the rewards. This is a perfect example of teen appeal and amazing literary quality. How can you not love such writing like this:

Kizzy laughed and it came out as a throaty chuckle, almost a purr, the closest she had yet to come to the sultry voice she would grow into as she grew up and learned how to wear her skin. If she grew up.

Oh, the foreboding.

The last story, "Hatchling" is the longest, and also my least favorite. The first, "Goblin Fruit" with its juxtaposition of Eastern European (Roma, possibly?) beliefs and culture with modern American high school life just works so well... and it's dark and spooky without being horror. Just a fairy tale gone darker than Grimm.

So delicious.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Short Story Companions

Next up from the archives, we have two books that are collections of short stories and act as companion books to popular series.

The Last Apprentice: The Spook's Tale: And Other Horrors Joseph Delaney

A nice slim volume to keep us happy (by which I mean scared) until the next Last Apprentice Book, Clash of the Demons, comes out (Which it has! Huzzah!)

The majority of this book is made up of three short stories. The first is the eponymous Spook's Tale, the longest of the three. It tells us of an adventure John Gregory had when he left home to become a priest. Along the way he met the Spook he would eventually train with and had to face a bone-snatching boggart and a witch.

Then comes Alice's story of what happened in Attack of the Fiend, when she goes to Pendle alone.

The third tells of how and why Grimalkin became the witch assassin and also offers reasons as to why she's willing to partner in Tom Ward's quest to rid the world of the fiend.

The last bit is filler-- a run down of the major villains we've seen so far and excerpts from the previous books that illustrate their villainry.

This is a great one for fans and the reader is left with some very big (but enigmatic) clues as to what will happen next in the series!

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Standard Edition J. K. Rowling

This is a collection of fairy tales from the world of Harry Potter. These are the tales that wizarding children grow up on. A copy of this was rather important during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

They contain all sorts of morals that you usually find in such things and are illustrated by Rowling herself. It doesn't add much to the Harry Potter story, not in the same way Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them did. (If you haven't read it, you should. You'll find out that there's much more to Crookshanks than meets the eye.) But, it is still enjoyable and super-fans will probably really like it. I know I did.

Return to Childhood Favorites

Racketty-Packetty House and Other Stories Frances Hodgson Burnett

A lovely collection of short stories by one of my childhood favorites. (I have no idea how many times I've read The Secret Garden. Interestingly, The Secret Garden and A Little Princess both fueled a strong interest in India and British Imperialism in general. I was a weird kid. But those books led to the interest which is currently manifested in my love of books exploring the current changing notions of what it is to be British, or British immigration in general...) Anyway.

These stories teach valuable moral lessons and smack of Imperialistic views and Victorian values and thoughts on class. If it was anyone but Burnett, I'd puke. But... for some reason, although they grate on me (intellectually) there's something about Burnett that makes me all warm and gooey inside, so I forgive her and enjoyed the stories as actual stories. If it hadn't been Burnett, I'd read the stories as an interesting historical relic--what we thought children needed to know, what thoughts about the world in general were, etc.

I will say though, the greatest part of this book is the inclusion of "Sara Crewe" which Burnett later expanded on and turned into her novel Little Princess.

Hanging out at Home

Fun new developments in my world: STREP THROAT! Ergh.

So, because I'm all contagious until I've been on my meds for 24 hours, I'm at home today. La la la la bored. Dan suggested curling up on the couch this afternoon with the dog and some cocoa and watching a movie while the world falls apart outside (we're supposed to get some weather today) but... the main symptom of me being sick is me feeling very contrary and nothing we own or on TV sounds good to watch. Y'all are lucky I'm home alone today. CRANKY CRANKY CRANKY PANTS.

I just got mad at the refrigerator for failing to magically provide cranberry juice even though I know full well that I drank it all last night. WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY FRIDGE DOESN'T MAGICALLY MAKE THE FOOD I WANT? SINCE WHEN?

See, even in blog land, I'm all shouty. Maybe because I have strep, so I can't shout in real life.

Anyway, let's talk about some books, shall we? Today we feature a book written for grownups.

Olive Kitteridge: Fiction Elizabeth Strout

Interestingly, my copy is not subtitled fiction, but rather "a novel in stories" which is more descriptive. For Olive Kitteridge is indeed a collection of short stories, all revolving around the small town of Crosby, Maine or its dominating title character, Olive.

I don't think I've ever read a book before with the elderly as main characters.

Olive is loud and outspoken, moody and unexpectedly and quietly kind. We first meet her in a story largely about her husband and his relationship with an employee as juxtaposed with the his relationship with his wife. We then see her as she talks to one of her former students, a young man who has returned to main to kill himself. We see Olive briefly in a story about a troubled piano player. There are two stories that focus on her son and how Olive effects his relationships with women. There are two stories (one strongly featuring Olive, the other one only having her make a brief appearance) with two different takes on how a marriage changes in the empty nest years.

Throughout the book, Strout offers us a glimpse into the tangled and troubled lives of people in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. She compassionately tells the stories of people caught in a changing world they don't always understand. She tackles grief and pain and the emotions of aging with a steady and clear hand.

Overall, she tells a wonderful story about a complicated woman--a week after reading the book, I still can't decide if I like Olive Kitteridge or not. Overall, a compelling and strong read.

Publication Date: April 2008

Full Disclosure: ARC provided by Random House through Library Thing's Early Reviewer Program.

Sun Comes Up, Tuesday Morning

Not a whole lot of news on this front, just some reviews:

kimmie66 Aaron Alexovitch

In this latest Minx offering, Telly is a 23^rd century girl who (like most people) spends all of her time in the lairs—themed virtual reality environments. When she receives a suicide note from her best friend, Telly is devastated, but confused. Telly wouldn’t put it past Kimmie to fake the whole thing as a prank, plus there is the little problem of the fact that Telly has no idea what Kimmie’s real name is or where she lives or anything about her life outside the liars.

Exploring a life lived entirely on the virtual realm, Alexovitch explores the thin line between reality and virtual reality and asks what is real and what isn’t. Although the ending contains a slight message to “stop and smell the un-virtualized roses,” this is one of the strongest titles of the Minx line.

First Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments ed. Cylin Busby

This is a cute collection of short vignettes about first kisses. The range and caliber of young adult authors included is impressive (Jon Scieszka, Shannon (and Dean!) Hale, Nikki Grimes, Naomi Shihab Nye and Scott Westerfield--just to name a few.) The stories range from hilarious to heart-breaking, heart-stopping to disgusting. The anthology contains quotations from movie stars as well as kissing trivia interspersed with the stories, poems and comics.

Overall, it’s a very enjoyable, sweet read that puts the pain, romance, and laughter back into kissing, without the pressure of going further. A sure-hit for the chick-lit crowd.