July Book Haul

I haven’t been buying that many books lately, but temptation in the form of the UK Summer Kindle Sale was too much to bear.

Feral Sins (The Phoenix Pack #1) by Suzanne Wright

Rating:

“Just give me a second. Attempting to give a fuck…Attempting harder to give a fuck…Sorry, there was an error; fuck not given.”

PMDD was bringing me down when I remembered Lei recommended Feral Sins to me last year as a pick-me-up. I didn’t own it then, but I snapped up a £1 deal on Amazon a few months ago. After finally reading it, I can understand the hype surrounding this self-published book. It definitely made me feel better.

Rant: Feedback Request Overload

Ever receive an email from a retailer requesting feedback after you’ve bought something from them? Have you noticed this practice become more common in recent months?

I sure have.

Lucifer, I’ll Be Watching You

Writing the The Wicked + The Divine review reminded me of Jay-Z’s Lucifer, so I looked it up on YouTube for a listen.

Instead I find this.

The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 1: The Faust Act by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

Rating:

What kind of teenager are you that you don’t have Class A drugs to hand? Hmm? Has The Daily Mail been lying to me?
Lucifer

Every 90 years twelve gods from multiple pantheons are reincarnated in young people to live for two years. The gods reincarnated are different each time and don’t necessarily live out the full two years, as the opening pages can attest with only four gods left at the end of the last cycle in 1923, skulls perched in the empty seats. Ananke is their guardian, goddess of fate, necessity and destiny. She’s their protector, but also their judge, jury and, if necessary, their executioner.

TV: Belgium’s Cordon a modern adaption of Albert Camus’s The Plague echoes Ebola crisis

“Cordon sanitaire” is a sanitary cordon used to confine the infected with a highly contagious and deadly disease to a specific area, quarantining them away from the general population until everyone inside either dies or survives, allowing the disease to die out. This technique has been around for centuries. Photos are available recording how the cordon was implemented in Honolulu’s Chinatown in an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1889. In August 2014 cordons were used in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia – the African countries most affected by Ebola.

The Fade Out, Vol. 1 by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

Rating:

Offensive racist stereotyping, rampant sexism, an abundance of rape, clichéd and disjointed storytelling and an unwieldy cast of homogenous characters of which to keep track – what’s not to love about this 1940s noir in graphic novel form?

Pride and Prejudice and the Peak District: 6 things I learned about Jane Austen’s setting

While away on a long weekend away in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire I learned a few things.

1. The scenery is breathtaking.

^{credit: Chris Hepburn/Getty}

Where are the older main characters?

^{Julia McKenzie as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple}

We have books for children, young adults and now new adults. Where are the books for the more mature person? Middle-aged parents and grandparents as supporting characters are abundant in fiction, but human antiques are much more than just their parental status.

Ask Graham by Graham Norton, and the reader with a bodice-ripping addiction

Rating:

Bluntly telling it like it is as only gay comedian, chat show host and now agony uncle Graham Norton can, with wit and wisdom. Ask Graham is a collection of letters and responses from Norton’s column in the very middle class and conservative Daily Telegraph. If you’re looking for a gentle agony aunt who sensitively guides you to the solutions to life’s problems without judgement, turn back now. Not that he is ever mean to the genuinely vulnerable; he saves his mocking for the clearly stupid and those who’ve made diamond encrusted mountains out of simple, mundane molehills.