Alex Is Reading...UPROOTED

As soon as it came out, I heard about a dozen ravingly positive reviews of Naomi Novik's new adult fantasy novel Uprooted (including Clarissa's--check out her shelf talker in Sci Fi). I finally pushed aside the vast piles of upcoming kids' books I absolutely have to read, and gave Novik's departure from Napoleonic dragon battles some precious reading time. Verdict before plot: if the first fifty pages don't grab you, KEEP GOING. It will be reading time well-spent. From that moment (really, page fifty, I mean it quite literally) 'til the end of the book, Uprooted is a tense, fast-pasted, highly creative and sometimes (satisfyingly) gruesome fight-for-your-life against the raging, dangerous and extraordinary power at the heart of a forbidding wood.

The plot of Uprooted is basically this: seventeen-year-old apparently average village girl Agnieszka is snatched from home by a magician called the Dragon, who protects the villages from the evil powers of the forest, but no one likes him much because he's a jerk. Everyone is surprised her pretty friend doesn't get taken instead, but it turns out this is because Agnieszka is incredibly magical, and in a really weird way, too. Which is good, because it turns out her weird way of doing magic is the best chance local humankind has of stopping the woods in its tracks before it kidnaps, murders, and buries the entire country in malevolent carnivorous trees.

A lot of the most interesting stuff, aside from the monsters, is how Novik writes about magic in this book, especially when the ways that Agnieszka and the Dragon experience the same spells are completely different. Complicated, original magic is one of the coolest things about good fantasy. Smart girls learning magic (and possibly frightening everyone in the process) is even better, and as it turns out, that is a genre that exists for all ages. So please, pick up the Novik, but do not stop there. Here are some suggestions for the entire family.

LADIES, LEARNING, MAGIC

Among Others by Jo Walton -- (Found in SF, and currently on our bargain table) The magic learning doesn't really take place in school in this book, but the protagonist, while plowing through hundreds of sci fi novels and processing the death of her twin sister and the looming threat of her mother, is forced to learn how magic works, in order not to do any more damage than she already has by using it.

Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce -- (Available online; recommended for middle school+) This quartet gives one volume to each of four young students of magic, who all use a different medium. The first three books are about girls Sandry, Tris, and Daja. The magic is neat, and the characters are among my favorites by Tamora Pierce. 

Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness -- (Fiction/SF) You can find this trilogy of magical academia, Oxford, and women's friendships in both adult fiction and science fiction, and they delight our readers from both sides of the aisle.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett -- (SF) Like most Discworld novels, this one stands alone just fine, as it tackles collegiate sexism through a girl who has the appalling gall to want to study magic at university.

Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell -- (Kids' Graphica) Antimony Carver is a poker-faced girl with a mysterious past, going to a boarding school populated with possessed students, sentient robots, ghosts, and monsters. She also learns magic from the gods that live in the nearby wood. This is an awesome, awesome graphic novel series that unfolds slowly, beautifully, and sometimes painfully, page by page.

Lirael by Garth Nix -- (YA/SF) The sequel to Sabriel stands firm enough without its predecessor. The first large chunk of it takes place in a vast library inside a glacier. There, teenage Lirael learns step by painstaking step how to use a power she does not want to gain the things that she does. The mythology of these books is always tremendous, and Lirael fails to make right choices in all the places that result in an extremely satisfying story.

I've previously mentioned Nnedi Okorafor's upper middle grade Nigerian fantasy Akata Witch, and I emphatically continue to recommend that. I'd also advise anyone who digs around in used bookstores to keep their eye out for Monica Furlong's Wise Child, Caroline Stevermer's A College of Magics and Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. They're three very different but all very good books that I'd put in your hands if I could get them into my own. Last of all, it's not quite in the theme of the list, but I recommend Patricia A. McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and truly all McKillip novels for a delicious sense of place, magic, and wildness in full flower.

Alex Is Reading...HELPFUL GUIDES TO THE APOCALYPSE

SO YOU'VE BEEN LIVING IN BOSTON FOR THE LAST MONTH:

A Helpful List of Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian Books You May Not Have Read Yet

1. The Wind Singer (Book 1 of the Wind on Fire Trilogy) by William Nicholson, currently available in the children's section of the Used Book Cellar. An other-world fantasy which starts with a dystopian plot in book one and moves on to bigger and better (and equally fascinating) things in books two and three.

2. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, available in our Young Adult section. Also a trilogy. The language is unique and gripping, the story is ferocious, and it's unforgettably atmospheric.

3. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, a story about a boy raised in a country called Opium who discovers the horrific reality of what he is: a clone of the country's drug lord, created as potential spare parts for the original. It'll be in Young Adult.

4. Starglass by Phoebe North, a subtle, beautiful book that takes place on a city-sized spaceship seeking a new future for humanity on a far-away planet. Carefully intertwines personal and political loyalties and turns dystopia and romantic tropes on their heads. And then there's the ending, which gut-punches the entire story so far and makes all those big problems look suddenly small. Also worth noting--this ship is culturally Jewish. Find it in Young Adult.

5. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin lives over in adult fiction, and it's the precursor to every single dystopian novel you've ever heard of--before Brave New World, before 1984, before Fahrenheit 451, before The Hunger Games, before Divergent, there was this little Russian novel. It's also fantastic.

6. The City of Ember by Jeanne du Prau may not be my very favorite kids' dystopia, but there's a good graphic novel adaptation of this story of a long-underground human civilization in our kids graphica section.

7. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is over in adult Science Fiction (good for teen readers), and it's a classic mind trip about a pizza delivery guy named Hiro Protagonist, virtual reality, and post-disaster America.

8. The Prince Who Fell from the Sky by John Claude Bemis is a convincing and satisfying futuristic animal fantasy, about the animals living on post-apocalypse Earth when a single human child--survivor of a spaceship crash--lands among them. You can order this one through our website. Intermediate.

9. The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick is about a kid who's charged with, essentially, protecting the last records of human knowledge in a world that's fallen apart. Also available online. Intermediate.

10. Feed by M.T. Anderson (to be found in Young Adult) is where I started reading dystopian fiction. So, it's America's future, and the weather is all screwy and people are getting weird diseases, but your extremely portable technology always knows just what you want to shop for! That's good, right? Hint: it's not good. It's totally not good. It's totally, extremely not good. (But it is a good book.)

With these books and others in hand, may you have a snug continued snowpocalypse. Happy chilly reading!

Twice Sold Tales

Despite the recent downpour, it's been a busy week for the Used Book Cellar, from what all the customers are telling me, everyone's moving, clearing out their stash, giving up on collections or trying to make room for more books. But these people's "life changes" are your scores! We have so many neat treasures, in addition to an exciting sidewalk sale this weekend chock full of half-priced art books, $1 books and other surprises that await your new paycheck. You'll need to load up on cool books if this rain is in it to stay. What will you read?! Here are some suggestions:

Tuck into an old classic from a vintage Modern Library edition with newly mylared dust jackets your welcome, guaranteed there will be neat ephemera from the 50s and 60s in here, I was sure to leave a few pieces! Excellent covers, classic books you've been meaning to read for ages, we've got it all. And there are a few more in our overstock room so keep checking back regularly as we put out fresh ones.

A theology scholar sold off most of his collection so we have a dazzling array of academic and general-interest books on world religions, everything from Evil in Hindu Religions to Catholic catechisms (a must if you're trying to make sense of Dante's Inferno OR Dan Brown's).

Also, a devoted reader of science fiction and fantasy dropped off all kinds of tomes. Everything from neat space operas to the Clan of the Cave Bear series to loads of Neil Gaiman. Come get your fill before some other muggle does!

This rain could go on for days, folks. Or hours, but whatever. Get prepared for an epic flood and load up on books now BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

New Format

So if you're headed down into the basement straight for the coolest section (science fiction, duh) you might notice that it's not where it used to be. It didn't go to space or nothin', we just moved it down the aisle and it now faces mystery. It looks pretty cool. Also, we just had our big lighting overhaul completed in the UBC. The whole store has had its lighting re-rigged to be brighter, more efficient and eco-friendly. The UBC got some majorly bright lights that helped out the browsing in our subterranean cavern, and now there's an extra row of lighting down fiction to help you see all the books you may have missed before. Come check it out!

Additional "new formatting" came through the UBC last week in the shape of a graphic novel adaptation of the Book of Mormon. I hadn't seen anything quite like it before so it seemed noteworthy. It reads like a pretty exciting historical adventure comic, but you get the whole story of the Mormon scriptures. So if the South Park episode didn't go through enough detail for you, maybe these are a starting point. Or if you're already LDS, these might make a cool "I'm-a-Law-of-Consecrationist" gift to the 8-year-old in your life.

In other UBC news, it's been pretty busy lately. People are movin', people are cleanin', people have time off and the weather is nice so they're totin' in books by the bag-, box-, and dresser drawer-ful. So we're being pretty selective and recommend that you call ahead or e-mail what sort of books you have to save some effort. And remember, our buying hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 10 AM - 4 PM. We can't take books outside those times. It's against Book Ordinance #279.

kthxbai!

Magical Angry Robots of the UBC

I was putting books away in the UBC when I came across this bad boy:

First of all, the design is awesome. I guess that's what caught my eye. So many sci-fi books look exactly the same, but this one stands out. Clean, simple, all white. It's summarizes the action up front and gets you excited all at the same time. And then I realized the publisher was called Angry Robot and they are based in Nottingham. I have fond memories of Nottingham from my Europe trip, and Angry Robot? Basically the coolest publisher name I've ever heard. Sorry, Penguin. 

So I thought I'd delve a little deeper and check out their website. And lo! This publisher is making it happen! Check out this Tom Gauld cover: 

They had me with the first line of the summary: "After accidentally summoning a demon while playing poker, the normally mild-mannered Chesney Anstruther refuses to sell his soul… which leads through various confusions to, well, Hell going on strike."  Umm, yes please!

Also: 

Sam’s job is to collect the souls of the damned, and ensure they are dispatched to the appropriate destination. But when he’s sent to collect the soul of a young woman he believes to be innocent of the horrific crime that’s doomed her to Hell, he says something no Collector has ever said before.

“No.”

Like, whoa. 

That's the magic of the UBC. Finding one book down here can spark additions to a reading list I'll never see the end of AND a lifelong loyalty to rad publishers that don't get a lot of attention otherwise.