Give Me a “B”, Give Me an “O”…

(’cause tags stink)

 

MY BLOG’S NAME IN BOOKS

How convenient. All accreditation is right on the pix. 

 

 

RULES:

1) Spell out your blog’s name.(this is where you wish your blog’s name was shorter LOL)

2) Find a book from your TBR that begins with each letter. (Note you cannot ADD to your TBR to complete this challenge – the books must already be on your Goodread’s TBR)

 

BOOKSTOOGE PROCLAIMETH:

Goodreads is Evil. There is no getting around that. So, as an Avatar of Justice and Righteousness, with the cleansing flames of destruction roundabout me, I will choose books from my Calibre library that have the TBR tag.

And besides, Piotrek and Olag started the rule breaking FIRST! * points finger * Those cheating scoundrels!

 

The Bear and the Serpent

Echoes of the Fall #2

Adrian Tchaikovksy

 

 

Odysseus Awakening

Odyssey One #6

Evan Currie

 

Old Tin Sorrows

Garret, P.I. #4

Glen Cook

 

King of the Dead

Ravenloft #15

Gene DeWeese

 

Shadow of what was Lost

Licanius Trilogy #1

James Islington

 

The Terminators

Matt Helm #16

Donald Hamilton

 

On the Steel Breeze

Poseidon’s Children #2

Alastair Reynolds

 

cOunt to Infinity

Count to the Eschaton #6

John Wright

 

The Great Hunt

Wheel of Time #2

Robert Jordan

 

Escape from Olympus

Falken Chronicles #2

Piers Platt

 

 

Wow, with all those O’s, I feel like I’m a bowl of Cheerios or something!

 

As it was, I didn’t have enough actual “O” books so I had to cheat! I hang my head in shame. Piotrek, Olag, can I join you in the “Cheater’s Corner”?

All of these books will be started within the next year or so. And it is wicked good I didn’t have to include my little byline: “Without a Good Book, Life’s Road is Hell”. My goodness, with that,  this post alone would probably push me over the WordPress storage limit with adding pictures for so many words.

Also, I think this might be a new record for me. Two (Tag) posts within 2 weeks? CRAAAAAAZY!

 

• –Previous Tag Posts 

 

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Book Haul & Kudos

 

Real Men Read Books

The problem with reading books is that a lot of the time that leads to ACQUIRING books. For those of us who don’t live in McMansions this can lead to inevitable space issues. Mrs B & I live in a sub-1000sqft condo so space is at a premium. That leads to things like Book (un)Hauls.  A Book (un)Haul doesn’t mean that suddenly you have more general space, oh no! It means you have more space for MORE BOOKS! As a dedicated bookworm, I take that responsibility seriously. 

 

 

This would be the first book I now recommend to those looking into the roots of foundational Science Fiction

 

Books, Vertigo & Tea did an audio review of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One about 3 weeks ago and I immediately ordered it, used, from Amazon. I got the trade paperback copy because it was only $4. I just started it today as my work lunch read and if it keeps up to its promise I’ll be buying it in hardcover.

 

Now I present my pièce de résistance.  Loose Logic put me onto the fact that the 35th Anniversary set of Akira was in hardcover. I am a big Akira Manga fan so I was pretty ecstatic about finding out about such a find. However, it was out of stock on Amazon and all the 3rd party sellers priced it WAY out of my price range. I was bemoaning this on Loose’s post when he informed me that it was in stock at Amazon Canada and below msrp. I grabbed it!

 

Big Box Set. Sentenced to Prism is a massmarket paperback, for scale

 

 

It folds open, almost like origami!

 

 

Hardcover on the left, my original Softcover on the right

I turned the book around on the hardcover so the spines were facing the same way, but the hardcover is now right to left, the way it was meant to be. 

 

 

An artbook with concept drawings, original magazine covers, etc. 

 

 

 

An example from the artbook. Colored and glossy. Tetsuo using his new psychic powers for the first time.

This photo also highlights why I don’t recommend this manga to just anybody. There are some caveats. 

 

So there you have it. All that room I made by getting rid of Terry Brooks’ books? Gone.

And once again, a big thankyou and kudos to both BVT & LL for bringing these to my attention.

 

 

 

• Previous Book Haul Posts

A Book (Un)Haul – The Terry Brooks Edition

I have had some of these books in my possession since the late 90’s and haven’t read them since then either. So when my cousin told me her step-son was participating in a fund-raiser that used the weight of the item to generate funds, I knew I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Get rid of almost 25 books and since they are hardcovers, they are bricks and should generate some serious money.

I’ve got an actual Book Haul post coming in the next couple of days (yep, those books never stop coming in) so I figured why not do an Un-Haul post? I’ve mentioned Terry Brooks and his plethora of books to several of you so I know you’re deeply interested, hahahahahaa.

Here we go!

The Word and the Void trilogy. It was Brook’s first Urban Fantasy and everyone thought it was a standalone, until he decided to tie it into his Shannara series. Very filled with his Dualism philosophy.

 

The original Shannara trilogy with its after the-fact prequel.  Sword was a Tolkien clone. I enjoyed Elfstones the most of these four.

 

This tetralogy cemented Brooks’ plot formula. Adventure, stop the bad guys, the decay of some long standing authority structure. It’s all downhill and bleh.

 

Meh…..

 

And this is where Brooks tied his Word and Void directly into the Shannara world.

 

I can’t even tell you ONE THING about this trilogy  *shoulder shrug*

 

Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold.  Another series by Brooks and I really enjoyed this first book. Thank goodness for ebooks though *wink*

 

Each book gets progressively less appealing.

 

Then they get bad. There’s another book after these that I read but didn’t even bother to buy. It was that bad.

 

And here are all the books stacked up, with Earth: Final Conflict playing in the background.  I’m going to have to load these up into cardboard boxes and cart them downstairs. 3 flights of stairs, sigh. Well, better doing this little lot now than in another 10 years when there is 10 times as much.

And that’s what I call a serious Book (Un)Haul. I will leave you with this suitable quote from Vash the Stampede because I just love you all so much *wink*

 

 

 

Previous Book Haul Posts

January ’18 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

17 Books (2 of them DNF’s)

6047+- Pages (DNF’s make it harder to get accurate numbers)

3.44 Average Star Rating

 

The Bad:

Curse of the Wendigo 1/2 Star.   Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Thorn of Dentonhill 2 Stars.  Just too young adult/stupid character for me to like.

 

The Good:

The Monster Hunter Files 4 Stars. Except for just a couple of stories, loved this collection.

Stranger of Tempest 4 Stars. Just a lot of fun that I enjoyed even with some issues.

 

Graphic Novels & Manga:

Both of my Robinverse reads and my OMG read were enjoyable.  Don’t want to take that for granted.

 

 

Personal:

January ended on a really bad note and is having effects all the way through February that will have repercussions for the rest of the year.  Mrs B ended up in the ER for 2 days and I was throwing up all night, and it was all about stress.  We both took this past week to abstain from online entertainment and to do some serious praying together as a couple.  We’re going to be taking the month of February to decide what to do. Just so it doesn’t sound all mysterious and crap, we’re having some interpersonal issues with another couple at church and it has reached the point where we are having to decide if we want to stay there. This is a very big issue for us and don’t want to treat it lightly. As such, while I’ll be posting again, I am not planning on visiting anyone else’s sites during February. I am also probably going to be posting only book reviews and use this time as a hiatus from any of the other non-review posts. Nothing personal, just have to prioritize where my attention is going for this month. . Thanks for understanding.

I would also like to thank each one of you that has commented in the last week. I know I haven’t replied back or liked anyone’s comments, etc and I don’t plan to go back over things in my notification bar, but I want to make sure you know that I do appreciate your thoughts and words. From here on out, I’m going to keep up with it as it should be a lot smaller since I’ll not be visiting and commenting around the blogosphere.

 

Cover Love:

Stranger of Tempest wins this month’s Cover Love easily! I fell in love with the cover when Bookwraiths put it up on one of his “Looking Forward To” kind of posts.  And I still love it months, err, years (!?!?!)  later 🙂

 

 

 

 

• Previous Roundup & Rambling Posts

 

Book Haul … ♪In a Winter♪ Wonderland♪ – Part II

 

What you can’t see is the snow blowing and falling. It’s great to be inside on the couch sipping hot cocoa and reading.

 

Nothing says post-Christmas, post-New Years like a snowstorm and lots of goodies from Amazon.

 

Finishing up collecting Zahn’s latest Cobra trilogy.  Right now, I’m collecting more out of a need for completion than any real interest. The original trilogy was pretty good but everything else after hasn’t really grabbed my attention.

Under the Red Hood was a purchase inspired by Lashaan at Bookidote.

Superman: Action Comics: Path of Doom was definitely all Bookwraith’s fault. We’ll see if this is a self-collected storyline or if I need to buy a couple more volumes. I need something to restore my faith in Supes after the debacle that was Doomed.

Spiderman: Homecoming is a movie that I’ve been wanting to watch despite me approaching maximum Super Hero Movie burnout. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll watch it and put up a review. My first movie review for ’18. Oh the joy

 

 

• Previous Book Haul Posts

December ’17 Roundup & Ramblings

I trust you notice the clever use of snowtopped letters and the candycane color motif. I feel that I really let loose my inner artist with this collage.

 

This month is dedicated to Mrs. B’s dead grandmother. Her passing away allowed me to take some vacation time and while Mrs B went to a funeral, I read books. Lots and lots and LOTS of books. 20 of them to be exact and 7665 pages.  * stifles really inappropriate comments* ….hahahahaaa…ahem…. I also got sick with bronchitis and had to take off from work on the doctor’s orders, so that helped my reading time as well.

My average for the month was 3.28. That was DOWN quite a bit from last month. Not that I had a bunch of bad reads, more of just a lot of middle of the roaders.

 

The Bad:

Light by M. John Harrison. 1star. This book stank worse than all of the vomit scenes that were in it.

Crossover by Joel Shepher.  1/2star, never good.

 

The Good:

Skinner by Neal Asher, which was 5stars.

The Sea Watch by Adrian Tchaikovksy. Also 5stars. Two 5stars in one month, whoo!

Orb Sceptre Throne by Ian Esslemont came in at 4.5stars.

 

 

Manga:

Put away 2 more Oh My Goddess! volumes. Only 44 more to go *wink*

 

Survival Saturday:

The Breakfast Edition was a good chance for me to try out granola and whey milk.  I didn’t do a separate post for when I used the whey milk later that week for some cooking but I ended up tossing the Hamburger Helper mix I made with it.  So while ok for cereal, I’ll never use it in cooking again. Too strong an odor.

 

Surviving a Bad Book:

An Enemy Reborn was more an introspective look at an author making a bad choice than a really bad book.

 

Non-review Posts:

The Invisible Reader was definitely my most commented and viewed post this month.

Subverting the Sunshine Blogger Award was the most fun to write.

Merry Shelfmas was a close runner up for comments and also allowed me to show off in true Bookworm style.

 

Cover Love:

A Fortress in Shadow: With Mercy Towards None won the cover love mainly because of its atrocious older cover. Compare for yourselves.

 

Not sure what this exactly screams, but it sure isn’t “Read Me!”

 

Now that tells you to Read It, Or Else!

 

 

Going to be spending most of today finishing up my Year in Review post and getting that ready to drop at 0001hrs on Janurary 1st.

HAPPY NEW YEARS! (in case I don’t see you until after then)

 

 

• Previous Roundup & Rambling Posts

Merry Shelfmas!

While I am not a fan of selfies, as they glorify narcissistic self, I am a HUGE fan of shelfies. I find that it says a lot about someone what books they have on their shelves and in what order, if any.  I find shelfies to be little snapshots into someone’s soul. All Shelfies should be clickable for bigger versions. Using my phone so I’m not sure how clear individual titles would be.

But here’s my favorite Christmas present this year. Mrs Bookstooge got it for me and we read it aloud while sipping hot cocoa sitting on our couch watching the snow come down through our sliding door window.

 

 

LET THE SHELFIES BEGIN!

 

This first shelfie is completely doublestacked, so it is missing almost half the books. The majority of them are Terry Brooks though, so you’re not missing out on anything

 

There are a lot of books on this shelf I wouldn’t mind not having any more. I used to buy books whenever, unlike my now maturer and wiser self. Now I only buy books if I think I’ll read them again.

 

 

The two books lying down are the Space Trilogy by Lewis and Through Wolf’s Eyes by Lindskold. They are simply too tall to stand up on these shelves.

 

While I’ve read a lot of Classics, that top shelf is about all I actually own. Probably not even 1/20th of my collection 😦  If only the Government would hand out free, leather bound hardcover editions of Dickens, Austen, etc.  Then I’d be a Socialist for sure!

 

 

This is kind of our catch-all, misc shelf. The books on the bottom row are ones I have on Paperbackswap, but to be honest, I’m just about ready to throw them out instead of spending money on mailing them to other people.

 

Mainly Manga. Just about all doubleshelved too. All 38 volumes of Yugioh are behind other books as well as all of XxxHolic and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. And Graphic Novels on the bottom row.

 

From when I USED to be a Star Wars fan. Then my collection of Wheel of Time books. I bought them all through the SFBC and am now slowly trying to find them in first edition hardcovers. I’m in no hurry. Then mostly paperbacks classics and middlegrade books.

 

College books and papers, reference books and our very small selection of theology related books. On par with my Classics.

 

 

There you go. I hope you enjoyed looking at those as much as I did. Feel free to oooh and ahh, ask questions, or even simply give me money.