rachelmanija: (Book Fix)
rachelmanija ([personal profile] rachelmanija) wrote2011-06-04 09:25 am

Kindle Sale

Amazon is having a 99 cent - $2.99 sale on selected Kindle books. Here's a few that may be of particular interest:

Predators I Have Known, by Alan Dean Foster. Yes, the Pip and Flinx guy. Based on the sample chapter, this is an awesomely and absurdly alliterative account of real-world predators he has known, as he happily traveled around the world to get a look at tigers, sharks, etc. I have a weakness for that sort of thing, and bought it. $1.99.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris's nonfiction book, Smart on Crime. She has an interesting background - her family is Indian and Jamaican, and important politicians on the Indian side - and the sample chapter is well-written and thoughtful. Will probably be depressing, as she is in favor of prevention and the American system as a whole seems to have zero interest in that, but I got it anyway as she seems to have some ideas I haven't heard before. $2.99.

Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer. For the love of God, skip the horrible anti-Semitic pawnbroker chapter. Otherwise, a really funny romantic comedy with great characterization. $1.99.

The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy. I have an enormous, slightly guilty fondness for this lush, engrossing, often very funny, and utterly cracktastic Southern Gothic epic about a family whose eccentricity, dysfunctionality, and mental illness goes so far over the top that it reaches the stratosphere. The movie doesn't really do it justice. Contains some racist characters, rape, self-harm, and many other disturbing things. Also contains some really excellent food porn. $2.99. My main problem with it was that after the entire family is raped by an escaped convict, who is then eaten by a Bengal tiger, and then the remains not devoured by the tiger are buried and the mother forces the family to cover up the entire thing, there is really nothing that can top that, and so the lengthy sequence in which the older son holes up on an island and gets shot by the cops comes across as a tame and disappointing afterthought.

ETA: Those Who Hunt the Night, by Barbara Hambly. Really excellent vampire novel for 99 cents... but comments say there are huge formatting problems. Caveat emptor. I'm mostly mentioning it to alert everyone that she wrote a third novel in the series, Blood Maidens, which I did not know of till just now. Very exciting!
rhivolution: 'check out my Gospel of Mark fanfic', aka I'm one of those fic writing people. (one of those people: fic)

[personal profile] rhivolution 2011-06-04 04:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Your comments are pretty much all my feelings about Prince of Tides. Seriously.
rhivolution: David Tennant does the Thinker (Default)

[personal profile] rhivolution 2011-06-04 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, definitely. I...really can't think of any major narrative point in any novel I've ever read that's as cracked out.
veejane: Pleiades (Default)

[personal profile] veejane 2011-06-04 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I only saw the movie, so I had no idea there was a Bengal tiger involved! The only way to top that is for the Black Stallion to communicate with aliens.

(Mostly I am glad the movie got made, so that I can forever get mixed up and call it Robin Hood Prince of Tides.)
veejane: Pleiades (Default)

[personal profile] veejane 2011-06-04 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Because the hounds were in his other suit?

Where do you even get a Bengal tiger in 1930-mumble rural South Carolina??
oursin: Photograph of Stella Gibbons, overwritten IM IN UR WOODSHED SEEING SOMETHIN NASTY (woodshed)

[personal profile] oursin 2011-06-04 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
O dear yes, Pat Conroy, turn the cracky angstometer up to 11 and keep on going...
(But I still have a weakness for his books, even though his characters all, invariably, appear to have been descended from Starkadders who emigrated to the Southern States, and what Ada Doom saw in the woodshed is nothing compared to what is in theirs.)
daidoji_gisei: (Default)

[personal profile] daidoji_gisei 2011-06-05 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm now convinced that I need to read The Prince of Tides. I don't have a Kindle but I was already planning on going to the library tomorrow so it's now on the list!

[identity profile] marzipan-pig.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn't realize that was what happened in The Prince of Tides, and am now kind of dying laughing.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I actually think you would like the book! It's incredibly cracktastic, but also has some good things to say about trauma and family insanity.

[identity profile] woodburner.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I... I... just don't have any words for that.
Edited 2011-06-04 18:03 (UTC)

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
It's actually even more cracktastic than that brief summary makes it sound. Like, they got the tiger from a traveling circus that was going to kill it because, while all the town's children were gathered in the audience, the tiger ate the performing seal.

[identity profile] movingfinger.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
They made a movie of that (Prince of Tides) didn't they? Live action? I can't imagine how.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
They cut all the most cracktastic parts and toned it way the hell down. No Bengal tiger. They really just kept the idea that a guy from a wacky Southern family comes to New York to meet the psychiatrist who's caring for his sister, and has an affair with her and recounts their troubled past.

[identity profile] movingfinger.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
In a way, it anticipates the oeuvre of Bill Watterson.

[identity profile] sleary.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I was just poking around the Sourcebooks site for more Heyer stuff, and discovered that they're selling The Grand Sophy in epub and PDF for the same price. (Although why anyone would want a PDF, I really cannot imagine.)

[identity profile] rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
WHAT.

Okay, I will read that. I can't believe there isn't a manga adaptation.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
It is, without question, the single most cracktastic non-fantasy book I have ever read. What's especially good is that it seems kind of larger than life but not more than many southern Gothics, and then WHAM! BENGAL TIGER!

[identity profile] kateelliott.livejournal.com 2011-06-04 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm pretty sure I read PRINCE OF TIDES way back in the day because it was The Book of the year or something. And I have NO MEMORY of the plot or characters. None. Not even what you just wrote. Maybe I didn't read it and only thought I did, or maybe I expunged it from my mind. Hmmm.

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-05 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe you didn't get that far in. That scene is hard to forget.

[identity profile] kateelliott.livejournal.com 2011-06-06 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Oddly, I am pretty sure I read it, and I'm pretty sure I read the whole thing, and I have a vague memory that I hit a point where I said as I was reading: "oh! a male being edgy and trying to hammer me with The Awful and Shocking" but I'm not sure.

[identity profile] two-point.livejournal.com 2011-06-05 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Living near Mr. Conroy I have to say that he and my mother once got into an argument over whether his family or mine was more dysfunctional. It was a tie. Living and writing in the south, I can say that the southern gothic novel is sadly more non-fiction than fiction. Maybe it's the heat that makes the absurd a daily occurrence. I will buy this book immediately and re-read from an adult perspective. Thank you!

[identity profile] rachelmanija.livejournal.com 2011-06-05 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Good heavens! I would love to hear some stories of southern absurdity, if you'd like to share.