Buy, Borrow, Bin: the Terry Pratchett edition

I haven’t done the Buy, Borrow, Bin game in a while, and I decided to make this one a themed episode for an added challenge. So I’m selecting three random novels by Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors. Let’s see which books are our contestants this time, and which one gets the chopping block!

Using a random number generator, I came up with the following three titles: #31, Monstrous Regiment; #21, Jingo; and #13, Small Gods.

So, let’s do them in order. Monstrous Regiment, sadly, gets binned. For starters, it’s a standalone Discworld book; while there are a few cameos from Vimes, Angua, and William de Worde, among others, the vast majority of the novel follows a rag-tag group of women masquerading as men in order to join the army and fight for their country. I did enjoy the novel — the story was good and I loved some of the characters (like the vampire recruit Maladicta and their medic, Igorina) — but the idea of the all-girl regiment felt a little contrived to me, as did the ending. And while I have read it more than once, I don’t have a strong desire to read it again.

The choice of where to put the remaining two is tough. Jingo is a Watch book — my favorite kind — and it features fun cultural satire abroad in Klatch, plus some wonderful bits with Vimes’s electronic Disorganizer, which I adore. And we see Vetinari outside of the Oblong Office, which is unusual and entertaining. On the other hand, Small Gods is utterly, utterly brilliant satire, skewering religion to hilarious effect. But only one can go in each slot… so…

I’m going to pick Jingo as my Buy selection, largely on the basis that I end up re-reading it more often than Small Gods. There are a few scenes of torture in Small Gods, and while they aren’t seriously gruesome or explicit, they still bother me, and they’re the main reason I haven’t read the book in a while. So Jingo wins, and Small Gods ends up in second place with Borrow status.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

Pinterest knows me better than most

Earlier today, I was stalling on Pinterest. I ran out of fresh pins on my home page, so I clicked the new option “Preview! Explore Interests” to see what that might yield. It turns out that Pinterest has analyzed my 2500+ pins and now has a really, really good idea of what I like. I was extremely impressed with how accurate it was, especially since there were a few items like magic, spell books and wizards that I couldn’t really connect to my pinning activity. About the only things missing are otters and chocolate.

I admit, there were a handful of categories that had me scratching my head (John Steinbeck? January Jones? Trailer homes?!?), but most of it is spot-on. I also liked the way it made bigger photos for more frequently pinned subjects like writing and board games. And there were multiple variations on my favorite pinning topics: the Avengers, Doctor Who, the Hobbit, Sherlock and writing.

Here’s the abridged version, eliminating outliers and redundancy; links go to Pinterest:

red pandasmandalasstress relief
Tom Hiddlestonavengers teas
writingnovels terry pratchett
richard armitagecastleskittens
board gamesdr horriblefirefly
sherlockbritishdoctor who
swordschristian kanegerard butler
cosplaybraceletssteampunk
hobbitmagicwarriors

Buy, Borrow or Bin, Round 2

Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailIt’s time for another round of buy, borrow or bin! If you missed the first post, I pick three books at random from my Goodreads collection and relegate one to each category: I’d buy it; I’d only borrow it; or I’d chuck it in the bin. Sadly, you have to put one book in each category, but so far, my choices haven’t been too painful.

My random number picks this time were 44, 100, and 127, so here are the contestants:

  • Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett
  • Misery Loves Cabernet, by Kim Gruenenfelder
  • Shopaholic & Sister, by Sophie Kinsella

This one is harder than you might think. Feet of Clay is great, but it isn’t my favorite, while Misery Loves Cabernet is all kinds of fun. But I have to choose, so here goes…

BUY: Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett. While it’s not my favorite of the Night Watch books, it has a lot going for it — particularly the fact that it introduces dwarf constable Cheery Littlebottom, a character I’ve come to love. I also enjoyed other colorful new characters and elements, such as the College of Heraldry, Wee Mad Arthur, and Nobby Nobbs’s ancestry. (The golems are interesting but were a bit depressing in this book; I like them more in later stories like Going Postal.) The villain, Dragon King of Arms, was also very well done. So we’ll call this one a keeper.

BORROW: Misery Loves Cabernet, by Kim Gruenenfelder. Yes, more chick lit. Spare me the groans — sometimes a girl just needs a funny, feel-good book, and this one delivers. The narrator, Charlize “Charlie” Edwards, is assistant to Hollywood star Drew Stanton, a character as loveable as he is crazy. The Hollywood setting and twists combined with the character of Drew really set this book apart from the cookie-cutter novels that have littered the chick lit genre. (You just don’t forget Drew buying a hippo and then needing Charlie to get it removed from his pool.) But I’m putting it into the borrow category for two reasons: one, if you’ve read the preceding novel, some of the scenarios with Drew will seem repetitive; and two, I’ve got to be in the right mood to read chick lit. So it’s a borrow — just as long as I can borrow it when I feel the need.

BIN: Shopaholic & Sister, by Sophie Kinsella. I’m sorry, Sophie; really, I am. I was a big fan of the first three Shopaholic books, and I like some of the standalone books as well. But this one was a dud. The plot felt too contrived and it just wasn’t that funny. There’s no question about it: this one goes in the bin.

I hope you enjoyed this round! Next time, I’m going to try a different randomization tool, since this one isn’t giving me great results; it’s definitely skewing towards numbers over 100. Or, who knows, I may just pick three myself with an aim for making things interesting! I’d certainly like to get a few more fantasy selections in the mix; based on the six choices so far, it looks like my library is mostly chick lit, which definitely isn’t the case.

Until next time… happy reading!

Writing Exercise: Hats off

top-hat-1395333-m“She wore a raspberry beret…”
Prince, Raspberry Beret

Some of my favorite fictional characters are known for wearing distinctive hats. Dirk Gently (of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams) is described as wearing a dark red hat with a flat brim — “…an elegant adornment… if the wearer were a small bedside lamp, but not otherwise.” Moist von Lipwig (from Terry Pratchett’s novels Going Postal, Making Money, and the upcoming Raising Steam is more readily recognized by his hats than by his ordinary features — first a gold hat with wings, then a top hat covered in gold glitter. Sherlock Holmes is another hat person; his association with the deerstalker is so indelible that the BBC’s modern re-invention of the character (portrayed expertly by Benedict Cumberbatch) uses the hat in one episode as an attempted disguise. In each case, wearing a hat conveys something about the wearer: eccentricity, flamboyancy, confidence.

Accessories and other items of personal decoration can help paint a vivid picture of a character. This week, write a scene that uses one or more physical objects to define a character.