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Nightlight
The Harvard Lampoon
Vintage Books
$13.95, trade paperback, 154 pages
Release date: Nov. 3, 2009
It seems everyone on the planet has some level of familiarity with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Devoted fans eagerly awaited the next installment of the lengthy books. When the last book in Meyer’s series appeared in August 2008, the books’ fans switched their anticipation to movies based on the books.
Thanks to a parody from The Harvard Lampoon, Twilight devotees now have something new to read, although Nightlight’s humor may be better appreciated by Twilight’s detractors.
You may have heard the FTC issued guidelines for bloggers to disclose when they receive payments or free products to prevent unfair and/or deceptive practices. The guidelines take effect Dec. 1. Both the blogger and the company who sends him a free product could be subject to fines if the FTC decides the transaction leads to unfairness or deception.
While the likelihood of small blogs like Small Pond being noticed by the FTC are, um, small, I’m adding a statement to my “about me” page stating that all book reviews headlined “Review: [book title]” are a result of receiving a complimentary advance review copy (ARC) from the publisher.
Some bloggers I know are refusing all free stuff. That’s very noble. And i agree with the FTC’s guidelines in principle. Unfortunately, to post reviews before or on book release dates, I need to read the books before I can buy them. ARCs are necessary.
I don’t believe the content of my reviews have been affected by not having to pay for the book. Or by receiving vampire teeth or other PR goodies with the book. So I’m going to continue requesting ARCs.
Just wanted to put that out there.
Primitive
Mark Nykanen
Bell Bridge Books
$16.95, trade paperback, 384 pages
Release date: Oct. 1, 2009
Mark Nykanen’s Primitive remains a taut thriller despite glimpses of an earlier didactic draft about methane gas, global warming and environmental activism. A less talented author may have been seduced by the opportunity to educate readers and advance a cause, but Nykanen remembers the first duty of an author of fiction is to tell a good story.
The story centers on a model nearing the end of her career. Sonya is kidnapped by a group of environmental activists — or terrorists, depending on your viewpoint — called Terra Firma. The Abolanders, as they call themselves, take her to a secret village in the Pacific Northwest near the U.S.-Canada border. They release podcasts of Sonya in captivity, promising to release a secret U.S. government report on methane gas. Read the rest of this entry »
Ice Land
Betsy Tobin
Plume
$15.00, paperback, 354 pages
Release date: August 25, 2009
Fulfilling the wishes of the Fates, the Norse goddess Freya becomes enchanted by a necklace crafted by four dwarves. The price they set for the necklace is high: Freya must spend a night with each of them. From this myth grows Betsy Tobin’s Ice Land.
Tobin weaves Freya’s quest for the necklace with that of a young Icelandic girl’s for love. Fulla lives with her grandfather in an Iceland at the turn of the first millennium. It is time for her betrothal, and, as in all good love stories, Fulla finds herself drawn to a man from a family who opposes her own. Read the rest of this entry »
The Angel’s Game
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (trans. by Lucia Graves)
Doubleday
$26.95, hardback, 464 pages
Release date: June 16, 2009
In The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafón envelops the reader in a world full of mysterious characters and complicated plot twists. Zafón’s gift of creating fully realized characters and settings overcome the at-times confusing plot. The reader is content to let 1920s Barcelona wash over him as he accompanies David Martin, the main character, on a Dickensian journey.
The Angel’s Game is a follow up to Zafón’s first novel, The Shadow of the Wind, and takes a step further into the world of magic realism at which Shadow hinted. Where the events in Shadow could be explained through a series of almost implausible coincidences, The Angel’s Game’s plot depends on what can only be explained by a touch of supernatural. A brothel that turns out in the morning’s light to be a long abandoned building with no sign of life. Questions of reincarnation and time loops. Echoes of The Cask of Amontillado.
