We're Movin' On Up!

Hi My Bookshelf Readers, 

This is my final message to you on this version of the site. 

Over the last few months we at My Bookshelf have been working on the development of the central My Entertainment World site where we'll be joining with our current sister sites My Theatre, My TV, My Sports Stadium, My Cinema and My Music. The new central hub will feature highlighted articles from across My Entertainment World and a showcase for our biggest exclusive interviews as well as the most recent posts from all 6 existing branches (and our brand new venture My Games). 


But never fear, My Bookshelf will live on as My Books, with it's own page as a branch under the My Entertainment World umbrella. At www.myentertainmentworld.ca/mybooks you'll be able to find all the same content from this site brought to you by myself and your dedicated head writer Rachael. 

Thank you all for your dedicated readership of My Bookshelf in the past few years, we love hearing from each and every one of you. I can't wait to show you our new and improved selves. 


We launch www.myentertainmentworld.ca this week- get excited and I'll see you there!


All My Love, 
Kelly Bedard
Managing Editor, My Bookshelf

We Recommend: The Drake Chronicles

If there's one thing we've learned from Hunger Games fever it's that YA readers were desperate to move on from the Bella Swan heroine model. Feminists, hipsters and tween girls alike have flocked to the stubbornly flawed but undeniably kickass Katniss Everdeen like she was a breath of fresh air; which, after years of a Twilight-ruled landscape, she was. But for vampire lit fans, a suitably strong leading lady has been sadly harder to find (they're out there, they're just not as famous). So we thought we'd help you out, point you towards our favourite cast of smart and capable girls living in a young adult fantasy world (yes, a whole cast of them). Actually, come to think of it, we've been missing some great heroes too; of the un-dead but still non-creepy variety, that is (and some living ones thrown in for good measure). And deep mythology with a sense of history and tradition, building a distinct world and a new kind of lore on top of the existing myths . And fun narrative voices with just enough self-aware snark to overcome some of the genre's sillier tropes. Oh I give up, there's all sorts of goodness in Alyxandra Harvey's teen vampire series The Drake Chronicles, I'm not going to bother choosing an angle.

Each book in the 6-part series (book 4 comes out in North America this month, it's already out in the UK) is narrated by a pair or trio of different characters from Harvey's well-populated world and explores the action of a dramatic couple weeks in the fictional town of Violet Hill from a new perspective.

Adaptation Alert: The Hunger Games premieres its Trailer

by Kelly Bedard 

The official Hunger Games trailer hit the world like a flaming District 12 tribute today after Josh Hutcherson (who plays fan favourite Peeta Mellark) introduced it on Good Morning America.

The superb, pulse-pounding teaser kicks off with the serene Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen meeting her tried and true best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) in the woods for their daily hunt. It's as peaceful a scene as Katniss ever enjoys and the sense of foreboding in Gale's pleas for them to run away together gives just the right sense of unease. Then we're on to the grey-tinted Reaping and Elizabeth Banks' frothily icky take on Effie Trinket, Lawrence's screams, the face of her terrified young sister Prim. The rest is a flash- the train, the prep team, Cinna's designs, Haymitch's training, Caesar's interviews and that crucial scene on the roof when Peeta first shows us who he is.

Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune

by Rachael Nisenkier

I am too old for Percy Jackson. I’m okay with that. But I think it’s important to start off this review with a qualification: Percy Jackson is not Harry Potter, it’s not the The Hunger Games, it’s not even Twilight. Which is to say, it’s not a careful examination of adult themes through the guise of children’s literature.

What Percy Jackson is, to use a slightly awkward sentence construction, is a truly awesome adventure story whose self-contained mythology draws heavily on Greek and Roman myths while providing often funny modern touches. On top of that, author Rick Riordan has created believable teenage characters who just happen to have the powers of greek or roman gods.

Kelly Talks Hunger Games

by Kelly Bedard

On my recent vacation I finally got the chance to catch up on some reading I've meaning to do for a very long time: at the top of the list, The Hunger Games. My Bookshelf guru Rachael loves the books and I'm more than psyched for the upcoming movie, so when the time came for me to jump into the bestselling series, I couldn't wait. And while I sped through all three hefty novels in a matter of days, thoroughly invested throughout, I've got to say I wasn't quite as taken as I thought I'd be. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Hunger Games, I really did. But I just wasn't as deliriously in love with it as I expected.


*Warning, this whole thing will be spoilers. Turn back now if you must*

Book Flashback: Good Omens

This feature sees your intrepid author venturing back into the books that delighted her in the past to see if they still stand up.

by Rachael Nisenkier

If you're a fantasy reader, chances are good that you've heard of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. In fact, I think I'd be willing to say chances are about 100% that you've heard of at least one of them. Otherwise, you've probably never read a fantasy book outside of Harry Potter or Twilight, and regardless of either book's relative merits*, you're not a real reader of fantasy so much as a reader of immensly popular book series.

Anyway, Neil Gaiman has made a living being the unfathomably cool poster boy for the legitimacy of fantasy and comics being "art." From his 1980s/early 90s graphic novel revolution in the form of The Sandman, to his 2002 opus/deconstructing of the modern religious psyche American Gods, Gaiman continually manages to maintain the literature part of fantasy literature, and, despite his massive success, still seem like a James Dean-type British outsider creating his hip art inside a dangerous and insightful medium (PLUS, he wrote an episode of Doctor Who!).

Terry Pratchett is slightly more niche, but to fans of fantasy (and specifically, to fans of satirical fantasy the likes of which hasn't been seen since Douglas Adams) he is a irreplaceable part of the landscape. His DiscWorld novels span topics from sexism to racism to nationalism to Trolls, and contain over 39 books. If Gaiman is the leather jacket wearing cover boy of modern fantasy, Pratchett is the hilarious and cutting stand up comedian who warms up the crowd for him.

But back in the mid 1980s when they started working on their collaboration (as Gaiman puts it in his foreword, before there even was a "Neil Gaiman" and a "Terry Pratchett" for them to be), they were just two struggling writers who happened to get along pretty well. And so they wrote a book together about the end of the world, because if you were Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, what would you do with your spare time?

I first picked up Good Omens my freshman year of high school. A much-smarter-than-me friend had been trying to convince me to read Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett for the better part of the year, and I, being the open-minded adventurer I was back in high school, was pretty resolute about saying no. But I've always been drawn to fantastical tales of good and evil, so when she put a copy of Good Omens in my hands I had to crack it. The cover itself was just so inviting.

In high school this set off a flurry of very expensive purchasing. I simply had to have every installment of the Sandman franchise (despite their $20-a-pop price, and the fact that I read them in about an hour, I refused to rent them from the library). My whole family began devouring Discworld (which, at about $8-a-pop, might seem a bargain, until you multiply that times THIRTY NINE). Every Neil Gaiman book was greeted with a mixture of trepidation and financial ruin.

So was this book actually as good as its effect on me in high school would imply? When I rescued my old, signed (BY BOTH AUTHORS, hachacha!) copy from a box of books my parents were trying to donate, I decided to investigate.

Adaptation Alert: The Help

Editor's Note: 

The Help is one of the biggest films of the summer. But the beautiful movie isn't one of those adaptations that lives a separate life from its source material. The movie is directed by the childhood best friend of the author and based on her book inspired by her childhood about a woman who writes a book inspired by her love of the woman who raised her. It's not a movie you can take out of context. Katheryn Stockett took a lot of heat just for writing The Help (a strange notion in context of the heat her character Skeeter and her subjects Minnie and Abilene get for writing the book "The Help" within the book The Help) and to think of Tate Taylor's film as somehow unburdened by that history takes away a lot of what makes The Help special. As such, senior contributing author Rachael Nisenkier (an author for both My Cinema and My Bookshelf) has written her film review as a companion piece to her previously published book review. You'll find both pieces here, published together in our efforts to capture all that The Help is.

Adaptation Alert: One Day

by Kelly Bedard

The film adaptation of the truly wonderful book One Day, predictably, leaves much to be desired. While the presence of the always sensational Patricia Clarkson (perfectly cast in the pivotal role of Dexter’s idealized mother) certainly helped the film along, the incredible miscasting of the story’s leading lady proved devastating to the adaptation.

So much of the complication in Dexter and Emma’s relationship comes from their regional class differences. In casting an American actress (no matter how charming) without perfect accent skills, the filmmakers essentially robbed themselves of that crucial tool. Anne Hathaway could have given the performance of her life (which, for the record, she did not even come close to giving) and no one would have cared because her accent work was just so bad. It was inexcusable (though I will admit that no one pulls off an "awkward girl comes into her own" makeover quite like Hathaway).

Rachael on Stephen King on Writing

by Rachael Nisenkier

It’s rare that you get to say a book changed your life and not be talking at least somewhat hyperbolically. It’s even rarer to get to say that about a book by Stephen King.

I’m not trying to knock the man whose name is ridiculously appropriate given that he is the King of pulp horror novels. It’s just that Stephen King doesn’t really put a lot of pretensions into his writing. He’s there to tell a good story, and tell it well. He doesn’t consider himself a great, life-changing writer. He is ambitious when it comes to the scope and breadth of his writing repertoire, but not in terms of the pretensions of the individual novels. And I’m sure he feels the same about the book about which I am here to talk, his 2000 memoir/writing guide On Writing. Nonetheless, On Writing changed my life. Twice.

Ten Thoughts on "A Dance With Dragons"

(because an actual review would just be scattershot and hard to follow)

by Rachael Nisenkier

10. It turns out I really like the actual kingdom of Westeros. One of my problems with this installment was that most of the action was set in the southron kingdoms, like Meereen and Bravos, and that I wasn’t all that invested in the outcomes there.

9. God I missed Sansa. Who would have thought, back in book 1 when she was just a whiny spoiled rich girl, that she would become one of my favorite characters?

8. And speaking of surprising favorite characters, I love Theon Greyjoy. Not since Jamie went from incestuous kingslayer to charming defender of the Maid of Tarth has my opinion of a character so completely flipflopped.

7. Although I liked the book, I think it suffered even more than Feast for Crows by only having half the story. I’m looking forward to having all the action back together in the next book, whenever that comes out.

6. It was nice having Tyrion back, but the entire book kind of felt like it had a “How Tyrion Got His Groove Back” vibe, after the decimation of everything that led to him pulling out that crossbow on Tywin.

HERE BE SPOILERS

Adaptation Alert: Hunger Games

by Rachael Nisenkier

Oh hey, new images of Peeta and Gale from the upcoming Hunger Games adaptation. I, personally, love them. I stand by my (cautious) belief that the seemingly look-blind casting approach that led to a naturally blond Katniss, dark haired Peeta, and Viking God-related Gale will lead to a movie cast with actors who actually can behave like their parts. What do you think?

More at Ew.com

The Help

by Rachael Nisenkier

I am happy to admit I indulge in the time-honored tradition of hurrying to read a book before a movie comes out. I’d like to think that I DON’T do this just so I can sound smart and say things like, “Well, yes the movie portrays her angst in a very visual way, but it loses the book's subtlety in representing her ennui” (which, is, for the record, what I imagine to be a stupid thing to say about a book-turned-movie). I’d like to think that I do this because I love stories, and prefer to visualize them in my own head before I see them on screen. But it’s possible I’m just kind of a tool.

Anyway, in anticipation of the new Emma Stone vehicle that had me tearing up every time I saw the trailer, I decided to read The Help. I’m a sucker for southern-fried racism stories, and enjoy a good "plucky women overcome stereotypes" yarn. So, in my summer-induced boredom, I plunked my behind down in the middle of Barnes and Noble and started reading.

Six hours later (yes, I sat on the floor of a Barnes and Noble for six hours, I don’t have a real job-screw you), I closed the book. In a summer filled with epic fantasy, this simple tale of three different women figuring out the central thesis that underneath our skin color we’re all just people had me epically gripped.

A Dance with Dragons, Interrupted

This picture represents how I feel right now about the newest 

Song of Ice and Fire book: burnt, terrified, 

and kind of excited that there’s a dragon on my shoulder. 

by Rachael Nisenkier

Rachael, you say, after post after post in breathless anticipation of A Dance With Dragons, how is it possible that you’ve yet to say anything about the latest in George R. R. Martin's saga?

Well, hypothetical internet reader, I am ashamed to report that my radio silence comes from a rather pathetic place: I haven’t finished it yet. I was the girl who prided herself on finishing Harry Potter first in a house full of speed readers. And yet now here I sit, almost two weeks out from the release of A Dance With Dragons, and I’m on page 370?

City of the Ick Factor

by Rachael Nisenkier

One of the unfortunate side effects to being addicted to young adult literature, particularly of the Sci Fi-Fantasy variety is you occasionally get sucked into a story that the whole time makes you feel like a fool. Lots of YA Lit is great, well-written stuff. But a lot of it (like any genre) is boring, or derivative, or weird. Or all of the above. Facing 16 hours in the car, I chose the audio book City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This is one of those YA books with a really cool cover that normally shares a table with The Hunger Games and Twilight, so you can assume it’s pretty popular. Plus, it seemed like a pretty cool premise: otherwise ordinary-seeming Clary discovers a vast world of shadow hunters (basically, people with the same job as Sam and Dean on Supernatural), demons, underworlders, and deception and realizes, to her surprise, that she is an intricate part of this world. Okay, I’m with you. Add to that a nerdish best friend named Simon and a tantalizing bad boy demon hunter named Jace, and I was pretty much sold. And the issue with the book is not the plot (with one VERY large exception, which I’ll get to in the SPOILERS section).

Quick Hits: Memoir Edition

by Rachael Nisenkier

I have a passion for both memoirs and religious stories, so it seemed like Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was written for me. Yet the overall narrative left me cold.

The author, Rhoda Janzen, has had an interesting and occasionally tragic life. And she chronicles it all with a humor and good cheer that really helps to pull the reader in. But the book loses steam as she goes off on tangents and random anecdotes while living back in her parents' Mennonite community.

Janzen is at her best when chronicling the absurd or the melodramatic moments in her life, yet without a clear through-line in her narrative, the book left me feeling unfulfilled.

Top 10 Game of Thrones Characters

by Rachael Nisenkier

This little Game of Thrones thing sure is exploding, isn't it? I did a piece a little while ago on Event Books, and next Tuesday's (ONE WEEK!) release of the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series, A Dance With Dragons, has me in a tizzy unseen since at least the last Hunger Games book. In anticipation, and since, as previously stated, I feel underqualified to judge the series as a whole, I thought I'd just share my love with a list of my top 10 favorite characters. Minor spoilers ahead. Feel free to disagree wtih me in the comments!

Books, Music and Love Stories...sigh

We've been trying to find the most fitting way of introducing My Bookshelf readers to our newest site, My Music. Lo and behold, the perfect answer fell into our laps. Here, in a joint-feature with My Music, is the best song ever written! (okay, slight exaggeration, but it's fantastic and wonderfully literarily dorky).

Share My Obsession!**

Name: Rachael

Currently Reading: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin (book 4 in the Song of Ice and Fire series)

Currently Thinking: Holy crap!

I feel under-qualified to talk about A Feast for Crows, or any of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series (better known by its television moniker, Game of Thrones). These books, already popular before HBO put them on television, have a rabid fanbase that rivals the obsessiveness of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Therefore, my newbie thoughts may have been interesting to a few people, and mockable to experts who would have found my absolute conviction that Kal Drogo would eventually face off against Robert Baratheon hilarious, but rarely capable of reaching the journalistic standards to which I mostly aspire.

But I've got to bet that there are a lot of you out there, like me, making their way through these books for the first time and feeling excited and terrified the whole time. At around 1,000 pages EACH, these books have been no quick slide even for a speed reader like myself, and the process can feel a little bit lonely. Therefore, if anyone else wants a judgment free zone to share their theories, excitement, or noticings about the books, please feel free to share here and join in on a semi-newbie conversation surrounding the Song of Ice and Fire series.

**Share My Obsession! is a recurring feature where either author or reader submitted obsessions with book series will be featured. To share your obsession with the readers of MyBookshelf, email kelly@myentertainmentworld.ca with a brief blurb about the book and why you are obsessed with it.

MyBookshelf: Quick Hits

Welcome to a new recurring feature over here at MyBookshelf. Quick Hits is a monthly feature that will allow us at MyBookshelf to share a little bit about some books that we love, whether they be classic favorites or new discoveries. Rather than providing long reviews, these quick hits will give you just a little taste of the books before sending you over to Amazon.com to check out the books more in depth.

Read on for our first edition of Quick Hits

This Rough Magic

The longest-tenured Artistic Director in the history of The Stratford Shakespeare Festival was an eccentric former actor famous for temper tantrums and stage fright. As a director, he staged some of the most popular productions the festival ever housed. In his 14 seasons in charge, he opened the new studio theatre, started the Birmingham conservatory and brought the festival completely out of the red.

This Rough Magic tells the story of how Richard Monette got there.

If you can make it through the somewhat tedious early years account, the material reading almost as an excuse for any bratty behaviour that might follow, the memoir quickly becomes a deliciously interesting read. For any theatre buff, and especially Stratford patrons, This Rough Magic is a fascinating first-person account of the life of one of the festival's most intriguing personalities.

From his 19-year-old performance as Hamlet through his breakout role in Michel Tremblay's Hosanna to his diva-esque quest for the part of Romeo and his decision to briefly trade in Shakespeare to perform naked in the original cast of Oh! Calcutta!, Monette gets down to the nitty gritty details of his life in the theatre, whether it makes him look good or not.

Telling the tragic story of his love affair with the recently-deceased Domini Blythe, his subsequent coming out of the closet and the lonely years that followed- the memoir is, at times, a very touching human story. At others, it is a rambunctious tale of a narcissistic megalomaniac who often seems to have been much of the inspiration for the character of crazypants Darren Nichols in the television show based on the festival, Slings and Arrows.

Intimate stories populated by legends like William Hutt and Maggie Smith fill many of the pages, including the account of his first moments on the world-famous festival stage when Hutt, often considered the greatest actor in national history, greeted him with the words "welcome home".

The more you know and love the festival the more fascinating this book becomes. The more you know about classical theatre, the faster you'll want to turn the pages. But for any theatre fan at all, This Rough Magic is truly a memoir not to be missed.