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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
JPwickwire has commented on (4) products
About Jenga The Curious Story Of Creatin
by
Leslie Scott
JPwickwire
, August 06, 2010
Jenga: a name that's synonymous with toppling wooden blocks, and for many people, long hours of good-natured gaming with their friends and family. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most simplistic game ever packaged. The fact that Jenga might have a living creator seems odd, right? Hasn't it been around, well, forever? Leslie Scott, one of the few professional game designers in the world, is in fact, the designer of Jenga. And her game-to-fame (haha) hit the shelves less than thirty years ago. Scott grew up with her family in Africa, and during the long, hot summers, they would play a game that involved stacking simple wooden blocks on top of each other until the tower toppled. It took her years to realize the novelty of this game, and longer still to realize how marketable Jenga could be. About Jenga: the Remarkable Business of Creating a Game that Became a Household Name--written by the creator of Jenga herself—charts Scott's journey from humble homemade game, to family-night fun that rocked the nation. Jenga—which comes from the Swahili word for to build--didn't have any easy beginning. Scott suffered through bad business relationships, patent and branding troubles, insufficient funds and lack of a platform for her game for years, until Jenga finally hit the market. But—and you know this if you've ever played the game—Jenga has a sort of magic to it that draws people near, and this magic proved invaluable as Jenga's prowess reached first a small circle of friends, and then a circle of companies, and finally encircled the world with a pair of wooden arms. About Jenga has a lot of untapped potential. Whereas Scott could have used this publication to share stories about her customers, or light anecdotes about creating Jenga, she instead decided to fill page after page with business transactions and details of her trade. This is fantastic if you're looking for a comprehensive, report-like guide to the toy industry. But it isn't so great if you go into this wanting funny comments and witty charms about the people who played Jenga, and how much fun it was to create the game. The writing is rather dry. Scott's writing is very academic, which is to be expected of a non-fiction book. However, this academic-ness impeded her storytelling abilities, and overall hindered the few narrative qualities that this book had. Often times, she gave too many explanations-of-explanations, and it was easy to forget exactly what she was talking about in the first place. Not that these tangents aren't entertaining—many are—but more often then not, Jenga's story becomes more like a biography of the toy industry. Like many people whose hobby becomes their full time job, Leslie Scott seems to think that Jenga is just another game. And in a way, it is…much in the same way that Disney World is just another theme park. But if you read a book about Disney World, or its creator, Walt Disney, you'll find something that leaves you reminiscing about face paint and light parades and your first ride on that flying Dumbo carousel. This missing spark of nostalgia was one of the biggest downfalls of About Jenga, and that's really too bad. So if you're looking for a comprehensive guide to the toy industry, and a warning about the many possible mistakes one can make while marketing a game—you'll love this book. And if you are a toy aficionado, or Jenga-obsessive, you'll probably like it as well. However, if you go into this looking for a summer read, or something light and fun, you'll be disappointed.
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Darkness and Light
by
Kathryn Nichole
JPwickwire
, July 23, 2010
Cristian West, an established young artist, has often been plagued by the elusive image of an unseen, but beautiful woman. Finally, after years of her face haunting his dreams and infiltrating his mind, he decides to paint her picture. At the same time, Sage, a vampire of royal blood, is still mourning the loss of her own true love after his death a century ago. She and her coven are in attendance at Cristian's art gala, when he unveils his newest work of art: a portrait of her. What ensues should be a fresh take on the often overdone vampire story. And maybe there was something new and exciting, hidden somewhere in there. Unfortunately, I will never know. Why? Well, as much as I liked the premise for Kathryn Nichole's Darkness and Light, I labored through the prose. It was difficult to read, not because of unnecessary complications—or mind-bending simplicity. Rather, the prose didn't follow conventional norms for fiction. Normally, I would just write this of as a stylistic difference and keep my mouth shut on the matter. But in this case, it was well nigh impossible to follow the story. Sometimes, five or six characters would talk within one paragraph. Their lines of dialogue were not separated at all, except that a new set of quotations began. Sometimes the quotes were missing altogether. This same sort of issue came up when reading the body of the story. Scenes were jumbled together, one paragraph after another. Rather than being separated by asterisks, or even just a blank line, they smushed up against each other, causing the reader to continually jerk out of the story. The plot ended up developing alternately too quickly, and too slowly. On one hand, sometimes so many things happened within the breadth of five pages, I couldn't keep up. This left the characterization murky. But then, almost a hundred pages would go by without an important event—only the characters revealing their life stories, times, and troubles to each other, often to an excessive level. I'm not sure if the latter was an attempt to support the 'quicker' pieces or not, but the consistency didn't fit well with me. As a rule, I don't like vampires, but I was willing to make an exception for this book. With some more polish time, and a better editor, Darkness and Light could've been the one vampire book I recommended to others. I loved the premise—I loved the feeling I got from Cristian and Sage. It was everything in between that caused me to dislike the book.
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Finding Emmaus (The Lodestarre Series)
by
Pamela S. K. Glasner
JPwickwire
, June 15, 2010
Imagine a world where empathy is considered a mental illness; a world where dozens of people are medicated every day for something that doesn't exist. Imagine being so empathetic that you can feel other people's emotions all the time, every day when you walk out of the house. You can sense danger—tell when someone's lying—and more. And because of this, you've been told you were crazy. Katherine Spencer, a 54 year old Empath, is just discovering her true nature. When, after countless doctors, dosages and side effects, her medications have no effect, Katherine's boyfriend, Danny, walks out on her. Hurt and alone, she decides to pack up and move to a small town called Weaver's Bridge. Once there, she finds herself undeniably drawn to a country cottage in dire need of repair. Without a second though, she buys the house, only to find a mystery brewing within. And when a psychiatrist friend begins to hint that she might be an Empath, Katherine finds herself on a quest to find the true nature of Empathy. 300 years earlier, a man named Frank Nettleton lived in the same town, in the same cottage where Katherine now resides. After years of being tormented by his wild and intense bouts of emotional instability, Frank comes to realize that he is an Empath, and in order to spare future generations the same pain and confusion he feels, he sets out to create the proverbial bible of Empathy—a quest that consumes much of his adult life. In this spellbinding historical fantasy, Finding Emmaus, author Pamela S. K. Glasner has proven her talents. Her characterization is wonderful. By the end of this book, I was attached to each character. They all have their own flaws and motives—their own ways of validating their actions and how they accomplish things. Because of this, her characters seem more like people, than flat imitations on a page. The cast is both dynamic and inspiring, and they keep the pages turning. And while I'll say that Finding Emmaus is definitely a character-driven novel, plot isn't sacrificed. A multitude of story threads are launched from page one, and they continue to weave in and out of each other—hinting here, pulling there—for the duration of the novel. Finding Emmaus reminds me a bit of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, in the sense of the historical and present storylines weaving so effortlessly together… but better. The prose is also wonderful. I didn't find myself 'snagging' against the words, wondering about the word choice or grammatical errors. Every single word fit perfectly in its own little niche. It isn't often that you find a good writer who is also a good storyteller, but I'm pleased to say that Pamela S. K. Glasner is just that. With well-developed, dynamic characters, a complicated plot, and beautiful prose, I felt each and every paragraph falling into perfect order—like a puzzle. Finding Emmaus is the first book in a trilogy, and if the author keeps up the good work, she will in me, a faithful reader. You can find more reviews like this one at my blog: http://www. dailymonocle. blogspot. com
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The Fruit of the Fallen
by
Burnham, J. C.
JPwickwire
, June 15, 2010
Serenity D'Evele has no idea that she isn’t like other sixteen year old girls. She doesn't know that her grandmother, Sophia, isn't actually her grandmother. She doesn't know why she's moved from school to school her whole life, never bothering to stay in one place. She doesn't know how sixteen years ago, a nun thrust her into the arms of a man called Dr. Johnathan Keats, and that he risked everything to protect her. Why? Because she is of prophecy, almost as if she's a modern day Joan of Arc. Or is she? What Serenity does know is that strange things are happening at her boarding school. Sophia leaves for weeks without a word. Strange creatures, voices, and dreams come to Serenity in the night. Even the people seem to be changing. Soon she finds herself sucked into the middle of a story laced with secret societies, supposedly mythical encounters, and corruption of what she thought to be good. "The Fruit of the Fallen" by J. C. Burnham is a wild ride that straddles the fine line between complicated and convoluted. The plot, though slow for the first half of the book, is very much the driving force in this novel. We as readers find ourselves continually faced with yet another plot twist—another layer in the already tightly-woven fabric of the story itself. From chapter to chapter, we bounce back and forth between Serenity's almost clichéd existence as a sixteen year old orphan, and Dr. Keats's gripping struggle in Europe. Nearly every chapter we are greeted with a new group of characters—some more vivid than others. And, while I've always said, "the more the merrier", I think some of the characters in "Fruit of the Fallen" could have used a little more fleshing out. Serenity is one such character. I felt like I never really knew her, except through the archetype friends she made, and the few words she spoke, until the end of the book. There, we suddenly see an entirely new character who, at times, tries to leap off the page to proclaim, "look at me! I'm here! I'm the protagonist!" Conversely, Dr. Keats—who I wish I could've seen more of—was wonderfully developed. His atmosphere was more vivid than any other setting in the book; his character more defined. Not to mention, he seemed to grow and change throughout the course of the novel at a steady pace. Some of the other characters also adjusted themselves, but not consistently. They're personalities seemed jerkier, as did their pieces of the story. One thing I did love about "The Fruit of the Fallen," was its myriad of supernatural beings. Fallen angels, hellhounds, demons, spirits… each one had its own, distinct flavor and characteristics, largely avoiding clichés and predictability. These creatures and Dr. Keats's character are what lead me to finish this book. I wish I could read the final version of this manuscript (the one I read hadn't seen the final edits) so that I might properly judge the writing. For now, I'll just say that I'm glad there were other edits, because I did notice some common writer's pitfalls like passive voice, and "show vs. tell". Although not without its flaws, "The Fruit of the Fallen" is an interesting book from a writer with a big imagination. If J. C. Burnham continues to layer his writing as he has in this book, every sequel will be brimming with promise. You can read more reviews like this one at my blog: http://www. dailymonocle. blogspot. com
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