My Back to School Giveaway is over, mercifully allowing me to cull the literary herd a bit.
The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno goes to Chris, and Shadow of the Swords goes to Kristen M.! Both winners have been contacted by e-mail.
This does, however, leave me with a copy of The Burning City. I suppose I’ll donate it to my local library, as we do have Racing the Dark, but if anyone’s interested, drop me a line and I’ll pass it on.
Recently, my mother found a Books-a-Million gift card lying around the house, and handed it off to me. There were ten dollars left on it, or, in reader terms, one mass-market paperback. I started picking through the sci-fi/fantasy section. I must have looked lost, as a very nice employee came to my aid with plenty of recommendations. (I ended up buying The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss.) During our conversation, I asked him where to start with Mercedes Lackey. He suggested The Shadow of the Lion over Magic’s Pawn, where he started. I asked him why, and he said to me, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial level, that the main character was gay.
I really didn’t have to the heart to tell him that not only was he talking to a queer girl, but an ace one at that. (It’s just so awkward when this happens.) As I regaled my mother with the story, she suggested that perhaps it was difficult for him, a straight male, to identify with a gay male. I think that’s no excuse, but it did get me to thinking about how I identify and empathize with characters.
As I’m packing up to head back to college in a few weeks, I’ve been sorting through my books. This semester, my classes require a lot more books (Jane Austen’s entire canon, anyone?), and I have much less space for any personal reading. But what to do with the leftover books? Why, send them on to my beloved readers, of course. What’s up for grabs is after the jump.
Shadow of the Swords by Kamran Pasha
As I was reading Shadow of the Swords, I was getting a strange feeling. It didn’t feel like any book I’d read before, but still familiar. When I read the Author’s Notes, I discovered why–Shadow of the Swords was originally conceived as a screenplay, but turned into a novel after the success of Kingdom of Heaven, a film I quite enjoyed (but need to brush up on–I think it may have come on the very heels of my Orlando Bloom phase). This made everything suddenly make a lot more sense.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
He realized that he was the first Jew to set eyes on his people’s most sacred site in almost a century, and he felt unworthy. Dwarfed by the ancient wall, he realized the true insignificance of man before his Creator.
pg. 41 of Shadow of the Swords by Kamran Pasha.
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!
The Literary Omnivore 