Elijah's profile

264 ratings (4.12 avg)
281 reviews
309 trivia answers
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Elijah's bookshelves

read ‎(267)
currently-reading ‎(2)

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Elijah is currently reading

	05/09 Elijah is currently reading: Dracula (1897 Edition) by Bram Stoker bookshelves: currently-reading, dont-own	my rating:
	Elijah said: "Right here http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/ there is a very interesting project, wherein someone is publishing each journal entry or letter (as Dracula is epistolary) on the day that it is dated, letting you read the novel piece-by-piece in your RSS...more " add a comment
	04/20 Elijah is currently reading: The Court of the Air (Hardcover) by Stephen Hunt bookshelves: currently-reading	my rating:
	Elijah said: "A great upside to having a significant other who works in publishing: free books! And I'd really wanted to read this one anyway. " add a comment

Elijah's recent updates (rss)

June 30

Elijah made a comment on Elijah's review of Personal Days: A Novel

Elijah wrote: "Job hunting. Now. Without even a BA yet.

Blech, I haven't had the presence of mind to do much in this...more "

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June 25

Elijah gave

to:
Personal Days: A Novel (Paperback)
by Ed Park (Goodreads author)

my rating:

read in June, 2009

Elijah said: "First, a disclaimer: I know Ed Park, and I use him as a personal reference when I'm job-hunting, so I may be a bit biased. On the other hand he was my professor, and therefore has graded my own writing, so I really shouldn't have to pull punches.
...more First, a disclaimer: I know Ed Park, and I use him as a personal reference when I'm job-hunting, so I may be a bit biased. On the other hand he was my professor, and therefore has graded my own writing, so I really shouldn't have to pull punches.

But, I really didn't find any punches to pull anyway, because I loved Personal Days (dunno if there was bias involved), and I've never even worked in a normal office. At times, the book does feel a bit like an author's quintessential "first book" in that it is constantly experimenting and doing things differently (each third of the book is extremely different from the other two) but it pretty much always works.

The first section of the book, all in first person plural of all things, is basically a series of humorous vignettes, without any real sense of a plot other than a general sense of foreboding. It's very funny, perfectly encapsulates New York (the Good Starbucks and the Bad Starbucks, for example), and is easy to read in small doses. That first section kind of flies by without feeling like a lot has gotten done, but it's very enjoyable. The second section is the most conventional (although the chapters are structured like an outline), and it's here that one realizes how the short bits in the first part really established the characters, and a plot starts to develop, if seemingly lazily. Then it's in the third section (the rambling section written in first person, as one paragraph, without periods, for spoilery reasons) that it suddenly becomes clear that there was a plot all along, and we suddenly realize that we were reading a mystery.

That last section should probably be read in one sitting, if possible, and while I was skeptical at its start, it sucked me in very quickly. (Stream of consciousness works wonderfully when it's funny.) It's a great reveal that makes one realize, just in the third act, that they were reading a well-scripted mystery.

I'm sure that those who've led normal lives of office drudgery (as opposed to my work-at-home drudgery, which might be worse) will appreciate Personal Days even more than I did.(less) "

3 comments

June 24

Elijah marked as to-read:
Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (Paperback)
by Robert Sullivan
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

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June 13

Elijah marked as to-read:
Passport to Peril (Hard Case Crime)
by Robert B. Parker
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

add a comment

June 03

Elijah gave

to:
Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)
by Brandon Sanderson
bookshelves: dont-own

my rating:

read in June, 2009

Elijah said: "Thank God for the New York Public Library and their comprehensive fantasy collection.

Mistborn: The Final Empire presents the reader with an incredibly interesting and different world that's quite believable in its own crazy way, and manag...more Thank God for the New York Public Library and their comprehensive fantasy collection.

Mistborn: The Final Empire presents the reader with an incredibly interesting and different world that's quite believable in its own crazy way, and manages, through plot and character, to make the reader not care (although in my case, that doesn't mean "not notice") its problems.

The back copy on the edition I read says that Sanderson asks the question, "What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?" but putting it so simply does the book, and Sanderson, a disservice. It isn't some simple "let's turn things on their heads just because" kind of thing (and besides, that angle's been covered before, hasn't it?) but instead a much more nuanced and interesting take on the hero of legend and the dark lord-type, and what went on in the past. And it does give us an excuse for an incredibly dark and painfully socially stratified world, one that seems terrible due simply to the personal whims of "God" who rules them. Sanderson does a great job of showing just how horribly beaten down the peasant class(es) are, and doesn't pull any punches in his depiction of the nobility (who aren't one note either).

What will most likely be the biggest draw to the fantasy fan, however, is the magic system. It would be better to leave that to be discovered by the first-time reader, but suffice it to say that it's very different and extremely interesting, and feels just intuitive enough to be believable. I could also see it making one hell of a video game, actually.

The characterization is mostly good, but here is where we start to veer just a bit into my problems with the book. The really, really principal characters are very well-drawn, and it didn't take me long to care about them (even if their dialogue was sometimes a little cliche), but the supporting characters are more of a mixed bag. Many of them feel, when they first show up, like, "hi, my name is _________ and my quirk is ________" but that doesn't stop most of them from growing on you by the end. Again, some of them are kinda cliche, but that isn't always a bad thing, and they're still great fun--even if a little more proof is needed that some of them would go on with the big, central scheme, which is patently insane (they mention this many times, but still). The Lord Ruler (clearly a villain) doesn't show up very much, but he's built up so much in the reader's mind, that when he finally does, every scene with him is affecting (I often ended up short of breath).

The biggest problem with this book isn't huge, but neither is it small. Basically, Sanderson's writing needs polish on a sentence level. "Show don't tell" may not always be applicable, but there were quite a few points in the book when I was taken out of it simply by how many things the narrative was telling us that it clearly, clearly did not need to. The feelings of a character, for example, that are clear from a reaction would then be explained simply, the reason behind an action that's all too clear would be laid out, etc. Between this and an overuse of simple adjectives and slightly overdone turns of phrase, The Final Empire could really have benefited from a closer edit. That said, this very seldom was a real problem, and I may be a little too harsh anyway, as this is the first escapist book that I completed after finishing my first of studying Creative Writing in college.

Problems aside, I couldn't put the thing down most of the time, and almost had a heart attack during the climax. The world is well-drawn, the magic believable, and I can't wait to revisit the characters in books 2 and 3, so I can certainly recommend it.(less) "

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May 16

Elijah took the Never-Ending Book Quiz.

questions answered:	431
correct:	309 (71.7%)
skipped:	179
best streak:	13
questions added:	1

beat his score »

May 14

Elijah marked as to-read:
Fake I.D. (Hard Case Crime #56)
by Jason Starr
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

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Elijah marked as to-read:
Kenilworth (Leather Bound)
by Walter Scott
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

Elijah said: "Beautiful old copy. Not sure of the year, but there's a note in the front that someone wrote in 1922... "

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May 09

Elijah is currently reading:
Dracula (1897 Edition)
by Bram Stoker
bookshelves: currently-reading, dont-own

my rating:

Elijah said: "Right here http://dracula-feed.blogspot.com/ there is a very interesting project, wherein someone is publishing each journal entry or letter (as Dracula is epistolary) on the day that it is dated, letting you read the novel piece-by-piece in your RSS...more "

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More of Elijah's books…

Elijah's favorite quotes

"He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
— Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche)

tags: epitaph, first, great, lines, literary

16 people liked it

""History pays no heed to the unspectacular citizen who worked hard all day and walked at night to a humble home with dust on his tunic and his flat cap. But in the end the builders have had the better of it. The miracles they accomplished in stone are still standing and still beautiful, even with the disintegration of so many centuries on them, but the battlefields where great warriors died are so encroached upon by modern villas and so befouled by the rotting remains of motorcars and the staves of oil barrels that they do not always repay a visit.""
— Thomas Bertram Costain

tags: architecture, humanity, war

2 people liked it

"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one."
— Alexandre Dumas

11 people liked it

"Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale."
— Rafael Sabatini (Fortune's Fool)

tags: beer

1 person liked it

"True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring."
— Alexandre Dumas

3 people liked it

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Elijah's groups (recent posts)

True North — 252 members — last activity 7 hours, 21 min ago
True North -- the direction for civil discourse on important issues, book-related and not; the things that matter most to us, the things that get us u...more

Outhouse of Uncool — 27 members — last activity 01/31/2009 09:40AM
To discuss everything uncool, crappy, useless and futile. To discuss how much cool sucks and how uncool is the new cool. Other topics: pez head dispen...more

Axis Mundi X — 196 members — last activity 9 days ago, 02:53PM
All skate.
Now reverse.

Goodreads Librarians — 2951 members — last activity 2 hours, 18 min ago
A place where members can work together to improve the Goodreads book catalog.

Activities include combining editions, fixing book and auth...more

Hard Case Crime — 132 members — last activity 23 days ago, 12:14PM
"They do write 'em like they used to."
—Publishers Weekly on Fade to Blonde

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