Watch any gangster movie and there is one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb: virtually no women. Yakuza are Japanese gangster's and I was interested in reading this book as the subtitle is: memoir's of a gangster's daughter. I thought it would offer me a fresh perspective on a well-worn story. Unfortunately Tendo's father was only a ( Read more... )

I really, really enjoyed this book. It had all the things I traditionally love in good books: great writing, some science fiction and a compelling family plot thrown in ( Read more... )

I loved this book sooo much ( Read more... )

I'm not someone who typically enjoys YA but this book came highly recommended and when I was in the mood for some light fluff it completely delivered.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before is about Lara Jane Song Covey, the middle of three "Song" girls, who are forced to somewhat fend for themselves after their mother died in a freak accident (their ( Read more... )

Here's the list of books by people of colour which I read in 2013. Where I've left reviews I'll link them, but otherwise it'll just be text.

1. Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh
2. River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh
3. Fledgling - Octavia Butler
4. The Happiest Refugee - Anh Do ( Read more... )

Before I started this challenge, I read Parma's first book, Spirited - a 102-level book for Wiccans and Neopagans - and liked the writing style. I have recently joined a Druid organisation, and since Druidry tends to work with the Three Realms of Celtic mythology rather than the four elements preferred in Wicca and much ceremonial magic, I was ( Read more... )

Very loosely based on Michael Ondaatje's own life, The Cat's Table is a ficticious description of a journey he made as a child from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to England. The narrator (also named Michael) is an adult, reflecting on a three week period of time that took place in 1954 when he was eleven years old and as such the bulk of the novel is ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to read this book since I first heard of it back in 2006, when it won the Giller beating out odds-on favourite De Niro's Game (which would go on to win the Booker). The reason it took so long for me to eventually get around to reading it was because it had two things against it: Bloodletting is a collection of short stories and ( Read more... )

The Lifecycle of Software Objects may be a novella, but its story stretches out over years, with Chiang providing a compelling narrative which leads us through the early years in the life of several digients, i.e. computer software avatars imbued with artificial intelligence. The story begins with their creation and development as overseen by two ( Read more... )

Stories of Your Life & Others boasts an incredible pedigree and came to me highly recommended from a wide variety of individuals. Virtually every story in the book has been previously published by a big name literary magazine (Asimov's, Omni, etc) and have won awards. I came to the book with high expectations and was left  disappointed.

The problem ( Read more... )