With Our Last $20 -- July 2014

With Our Last $20 is a feature here at The Broke & The Bookish wherein we answer the prompt of which book we'd purchase with the last $20 left in our pocket for each month -- be it new releases or older books...basically which ever book we'd be so excited to read that we'd be willing to spend the last $20 in our pockets on. I mean, we are The Broke and the Bookish after all. We'd no doubt live up to our name and forgo other things for a new book!

Jamie's pick -- Boomerang by Noelle August: I love me some Veronica Rossi and she and another writer make up the duo of Noelle August. If there is anybody that can write a New Adult novel I will love I KNOW it's her. It sounds cute and funny!









Jana's Pick -- Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
I've been really in the mood for a good contemporary mystery, thriller kind of book and I've seen a few great reviews pop up for Dangerous Girls recently. I'm definitely intrigued!

Julia's Pick -- Two Weeks With Lady X by Eloisa James 

I picked up this book recently for $2.99! I didn't even need to spend the whole twenty haha. I love myself some Ms. James, so getting her newest book for such a steal is an amazing deal. This book is loosely related to her Desperate Duchess series, so I can't wait to get back into that world :)

So what about you guys? What book can't you wait to get your hands on?

Julia Reviews The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Title/Author: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

Publisher/Year Published:  2013 by Hatchette

How I got this book: My coworker let me borrow it

Why I read this book: This was our June/July bookclub pick at work

Rating: 5 stars

Summary:

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.
Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

During my reading slump book club at work selected The Cuckoo's Calling for our June pick. Luckily for me, our June meeting got pushed back into July giving me the chance to try and read it. Right after I posted my last post, my friend gave me this book and said she liked it. I really like the discussion at the meetings, so I gave it a try. And I am glad I did.

I don't read a lot of crime or mystery novels so this was a great one to expand my horizons with. First off, it's JK Rowling so I at least knew I liked some of her past writings, so I was hoping for it to suck me in, and it did. We start off with the scene of the crime in the prologue. Instantly you are thrown into the world of this supermodel and how tragically it ended. 

Then we get to meet Strike, our detective. He and Robin, his temp secretary, are hired by the murdered model's brother to investigate the suicide, because he doesn't believe that it was a suicide. He thinks it was murder. We get to follow Strike as he tried to unravel the events of months ago and figure out all the clues. I was completely wrong at who it was as per my usual mystery read, but I really enjoyed how the story unfolded. 

I am hoping that this read, which I like and was instantly involved in, snaps my slump. I am recommending this for anyone who likes a good bit of mystery in their life. It's a large book, but a quick read. 

Tahleen reviews: "Road Trip" by Gary and Jim Paulsen

Title: Road Trip
Author: Gary Paulsen and Jim Paulsen
Publisher: Listening Library, 2013 (print from Wendy Lamb Books)
Narrator: Mike Chamberlain, with John H. Mayer

Rating: 4.5

Road Trip by Gary Paulsen and his son Jim is a quick, fun middle-grade listen for summertime.

Ben is woken up early one morning by his father, who informs him they're going on a road trip for a few days to rescue a border collie puppy. Because they're on a border collie rescue list, and they already have an older border collie named Atticus, he's not too surprised. He is surprised, however, when his dad informs him that he quit his job in order to start flipping houses—and because money is tight, Ben can't go to hockey camp this summer. Ben is beyond mad, so he lashes out by inviting his older, and possibly delinquent, friend Theo along. What follows is a road trip like no other, where they meet new friends (and enemies), have some adventures, and work through their relationship issues on their way to a cute little puppy who needs them.

I downloaded this book from my library on a whim because I needed something quick on my phone for a run when I realized my iPod was dead. This was a great choice! I really like Mike Chamberlain as a narrator (I had encountered his work previously with Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea), and Atticus the dog, voiced by John H. Mayer, adds his perspective every now and then, which is great to listen to.

The audiobook is only a few hours long, but it is a satisfying story nonetheless. There is no shortage of serious situations, either; Theo is in some serious trouble when he crosses the wrong guy, and Ben is genuinely worried about his father's new jobless situation. Plus, they need to get to that puppy in time.

In short, pick up this audiobook if you're looking for a quick road trip book for the summer! It won't disappoint, but what else would you expect from Gary Paulsen?

Disclaimer: I got this digital audiobook from my local library

Top Ten Things We Like/Dislike On Our Book Covers

To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

Today we are talking about things we like and dislike on book covers!

 

 

 Things We Like:

Jamie likes....amazing typography. I'm a sucker for covers with great typography whether it's the sole focus or blends in perfectly with another subject on the cover.


Jamie likes....when the cover cleverly ties into something in the story. Recently Life By Committee by Corey Ann Haydu did this and I was reminded how much I love when a certain scene or detail is somehow incorporated into the cover.

Julia likes... when book covers clearly show what genre the book is. So when I am browsing the romance section and I see a cover like My Lady Quicksilver by Bec McMaster, I can clearly tell this has an edge of Steampunk.

Jana likes... when the book cover is illustrated (Like Shadow and Bone) more than when it uses photos. It just comes off as being more creative to me.

Jana likes it when cover designers get clever/bold with color. So many books are dark. If I look at the spines on my shelf, they all kind of blend together in a dark glob. And then BAM: a hot pink or bright yellow cover! So fun.

Things We Don't Like:

Tahleen doesn't like.....Whitewashing. Obviously. I hate it when this happens, but I'm glad people are noticing and calling out the publishers/book designers when it happens. In some cases, like Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass and Justine Larbalestier's Liar, it's enough to get it changed.

Tahleen doesn't like..The half/partial face thing, especially if there are two faces kissing. I just don't want to look at these. There is usually nothing interesting about them, except for the rare occasion when the cover is cleverly done, like What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang.

Tahleen doesn't like.....The girl in the ballgown. Especially if the book doesn't include a ballgown. This trend is really going to date the books that sport those kinds of covers.

Jamie doesn't like....when the people on the cover don't match the description of the characters IN the book. It's bad enough if I'm seeing faces (because than that's how I'm picturing them) but seriously...why would the blonde MC being a brunette on the cover?

Jana doesn't like pretty much all movie tie-in covers. I like the original cover! I don't care about pretty celebrity faces. The book is always better anyway.

Jana does not like the trend followers. Like Tahleen said, there's a lot of half/partial faces and ballgowns on covers. There's also a lot of the same cover models, the same stock images, the same conceptual ideas (like pale hands holding various non-pale items like apples and flowers...), the same color schemes, etc. I love it when a designer chooses to be different.

What things do you like/dislike when it comes to covers and cover trends? Agree/disagree with us??

"Book Your Trip" -- NPR's Summer Reading List

Photo from Article

I've only recently started keeping track of NPR's book news.  I know that they annually put out a summer reading list.  This year they took a different track and organized their lists into modes of transportation, as opposed to genre.  You can read the full introductory article here.

The idea came from a previous article that looked for a common thread in a variety of books.  By organizing the summer reading lists around modes of transportation, readers are introduced to a variety of books of all genres and for all ages.  For instance in the car list, both Go Dogs, Go and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas appear and on the trains list, both The Little Engine that Could and Anna Karenina appear.  The tagline for the series is that they have lists on "literary travel by train, plane, car, bike, boat, foot, city transit, horse, balloon, rocketship, time machine and even giant peach."

One of the things that stood out to me as I was reading the list was that their emphasis was on discovery, introducing readers to books that may not have heard of or thought about reading before.  By linking the books to something readers do know about or are interested in, they might read something new and different.  Naturally, these lists are not even close to being exhaustive.  And they were going for variety, so some well-known books had to get cut from the final list.

Reader advisory is something that I really didn't get interested in until the very end of my library school time.  As in, I became interested in April, then I graduated in May.  The place I went is having a class on reader advisory this summer, but I was unable to take it (stupid graduation!).  I also got the opportunity to meet Nancy Pearl at a talk she gave in Tulsa in April (which led to my interest in reader advisory).  To me, at the core of this is that some people don't like reading because they haven't been introduced to the right book.  So when you learn how to recommend books based on a person's interests and situation, you are providing a much better service than simply handing off your favorite book to an unsuspecting victim.  I've been practicing this in the past few years--just because I love a book doesn't mean my dad or Zach (my usual "Here, read this!" victims) are going to like it, so I hold some books back.

Naturally, with these mass summer reading lists, you can't be specific to every single person who looks for the list...but you can try to be general and hopefully get someone's attention by linking a couple of books together.

Personally, I find this to be an interesting and great way to organize a book list.  Mostly for the variety factor.  But not everyone would agree.

What do you think about this kind of organization?

Top Ten Books On Daisy's Summer TBR List

To learn more about Top Ten Tuesday or see the list of future topics click here.

So I'll be focusing on books that will be released during the summer :)

The Sequels That I Needed Yesterday

The Perilous Sea by Sherry Thomas: ALL. THE. EXCITEMENT> I mean, SERIOUSLY, I just LOVED The Burning Sky and I need this sequel in my life because Iolanthe and Titus and yes to all the magic and intrigue and just YES OK?

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas: I cannot begin to tell you how jealous I am of the people who actually got an ARC of this at BEA. Because holy crap, I will drop everything to read this when it finally arrives in my mailbox. Already pre-ordered and everything. GIVE ME MORE CELAENA AND CHAOL AND DORIAN AND just all the excitement that I know is coming.

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness: I really enjoyed the first two books in this series and will scoop this up when it comes out!

The Series Starters

Get Even by Gretchen McNeil: this sort of sounds a bit like Pretty Little Liars and I'm always down for something like that.

Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini: after loving her Unearthly series, I will reading basically anything that Josephine Angelini writes and this sounds really exciting!

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson: I've heard amazing things about this and can't wait to see for myself!

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie: Joe Abercrombie's first YA series, I'm SO in!

The Standalones (I think)

(The Witch of) Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper: WITCHES! I will always be down for anything that promises witchy goodness!

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins: so this will probably be on a lot of lists, but I'm so excited that it's finally almost coming out! I think it'll be worth the wait :)

Just Like the Movies by Kelly Fiore: this sounds super cute and I just love the cover!

Bonus addition that technically is released in spring:
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo: I need more Alina and STURMHOND and just more of this world and Leigh Bardugo's writing, even though I'll be SO sad to see this series end...

Julia is in a slump. Help me out!

Reading slumps are something that come up quite frequently here. We apparently even have a tag for it. I guess that is probably because we all go through them at different times. Well, I've been stuck in one for over a month now.

I think for me it's a combination of a ton of things that are not putting my in the mood to read. But the one I am going to focus on is I am not finding books that just sucks me in. The last one to do that was Libriomancer and I believe that was only because I was stuck on a plane so I pretty much forced myself to get to the interesting part.

So I need help. What was the last book that really sucked you in from the get go? I don't even care about genre at this point. I'll try anything!