Enter to win a copy of Itch Rocks: The Further Adventures of an Element Hunter, by Simon Mayo. Giveaway begins April 7, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends May 6, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.
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Blog: The Children's Book Review (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Giveaways, Simon Mayo, Add a tag
Blog: The YA YA YAs (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: brian switek, my beloved brontosaurus, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Not YA, itch, 48hbc, simon mayo, Add a tag
I was very indecisive this evening and could not decide what book to read. I picked up Martha Wells’ Emilie & the Hollow World but wasn’t feeling it, so put it down after reading the first chapter. Maybe I’ll get back to it later.
I did finish the next book I tried, which was
Itch: The Explosive Adventures of an Element Hunter by Simon Mayo (fiction)
- The book in brief: Some people baseball cards. Others collect books. {looks around} Itch collect elements. You know, as in lead, sulfur, phosphorous. His collection is pretty small, since he has to buy what he can’t scavenge from home and other elements are too dangerous to sell. When Itch gets his hands on what he thinks is uranium, but turns out to be an extremely radioactive unknown element that could change the world, he must figure out how to keep the rocks out of the villains’ clutches.
- Continuing the trend of reading long, 400+ page books for this year’s challenge…
- It’s overly long. It takes a while before the radioactive rock part of the plot is introduced, and I thought the denouement dragged a bit. Also, there’s reluctant reader appeal in terms of plot and characters, but I think the length will turn off some potential readers.
- On the other hand, how often do you see a middle grade/YA fiction storyline with this much science that doesn’t involve cloning, genetic engineering, or extreme weather? If you can think of other recent books, let me know in the comments!
- Another thing I liked: kids in school think Itch is weird, so he is very close to, and has positive relationships with, his younger sister and a female cousin.
- Includes an author’s note with some background information about the scientific topics that are mentioned during the story.
- Possible readalikes: The Project by Brian Falkner (which is a much shorter book), the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowtiz (except Alex is a trained spy and Itch is not), maybe Icecore by Matt Whyman. And Digit by Anabel Monaghan has a similar geek-whose-love-of-math/elements-leads-them-to-a-discovery-with-serious-like-we’re-talking-national-security-here-implications plot.
which put me in a scientific mood, so I followed that up with the first third of
My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs by Brian Switek (adult nonfiction)
- I’m not actually interested in dinosaurs per se, but how and why our knowledge of them has changed? And what “they’ve begun to teach us about evolution, extinction, and survival”? I’ll give a book about that a try.
- Hey, he quotes Mike Brown in How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.
- Switek is a genial paleontological tour guide, part of what I’m beginning to consider the Mary Roach Road Trip School of Science Writing. Case in point: chapter three, “Big Bang Theory,” about dinosaur sex.
Then I decided I needed to go to sleep and will finish the book in the morning.
Today’s stats
Time read: 4 hours 9 minutes
Blogging time: 50 minutes
Pages read: 511
Filed under: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Not YA
Blog: Keith Mansfield (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Cinema, Jonathan Ross, Werner Herzog, Ben Dupre, Brain in a vat, gallerist, Mark Kermode, Nick Bostrom, Simon Mayo, Treme, Ultimate Film, book reviews, movies, film, philosophy, New Orleans, autobiography, Radio, Angelina Jolie, America, critics, Add a tag
Earlier this week, I found myself wandering the rainwashed streets of New Orleans with U2′s “All I Want is You” playing on the soundtrack in my head. Cut to sitting at the French Quarter’s hippest bar, sipping cocktails mixed by a beautiful actress bartender. Chatting beside me was a local gallerist* and, along from him, a couple of artists he represented. In front of me was the notebook open at the final chapter of Johnny Mackintosh: Battle for Earth and a copy of Mark Kermode’s autobiography, It’s Only a Movie.
The gallerist wanted to talk science fiction, notably Iain (M.) Banks and Dr Who. We had similar views on both and I could recount the time where I accidentally got the Scottish novelist a little drunk in a bar before a book reading, buying him whisky and telling him he’d inspired my own novels. It took a little while for the bartender to fess up to being an actress (it turned out a show of hers was even on HBO when I returned to the hotel), but once the fact was divulged she was reciting Shakespearean sonnets and having me recreate a scene from Austin Powers with her. After which I could even tell her how I once worked with Mike Myers!
I know I’m incredibly lucky, but it often feels as though I’m living inside a wonderfully entertaining movie in which I’m director, screenwriter, cinematographer, location manager, head of casting and leading actor. And that’s exactly the conceit of Dr Kermode’s autobiography. It’s already the third book I’ve read this year so I figured it’s time to get busy reviewing or get busy dying. Choose life.
Ever since I noticed there were film critics, Kermode has been my favourite. He’s risen through the ranks to be the nation’s favourite too, with regular slots on The Culture Show and a weekly movie roundup with “clearly the best broadcaster in the country (and having the awards to prove it)” Simon Mayo that’s so entertaining it’s been extended to two whole hours on a Friday afternoon. Possibly the highlight of my time as publisher at the bfi (British Film Institute) was receiving a very lovely email from Dr K. It goes without saying he wrote the bfi Modern Classic on The Exorcist, but this is also the man who made On the Edge of Blade Runner.
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