August 2013

  • Science Fiction Fridays: An interview with Grand Master of Science Fiction James Gunn

    In this week’s Science Fiction Fridays, we are honored to have an interview with Grand Master of Science Fiction, James Gunn. His stunning new novel, Transcendental, is a smart, complex and stirring novel that has echoes of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. There are so many interesting aliens in Transcendental. Where do you start when creating aliens?… Continue reading

  • Three for Free – ‘It’s so hard’ edition

    Writing is hard. How hard you might say? Rock hard, I might respond. For example, I’ve spent the better part of an hour just writing these opening sentences. For those of you keeping score at home, the first question I would ask you is why are you scoring this at home? Then, I would tell… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Paperbacks to go!

    When we started this weekly romance post several months ago, our goal was to highlight the extensive collection of romance titles available for checkout from The Seattle Public Library. But did you know that the Library also has a significant number of paperbacks that don’t appear in our catalog? We order these books in addition… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: Richard III

    The menacing Richard III portrayed by artists and in literature may reflect more of Tudor political machinations than of the man who was Richard of Gloucester. Labeled villain by Shakespeare in “The Tragedy of Richard III, “an “elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,” (Act 1.iii), many authors and historians since have built stories based on Richard’s guilt,… Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: Graduation Day

    Graduation is a major rite of passage whether it be from high school or college. These films capture the momentous occasion and the sometimes confusing, anticlimatic aftermath of such life transitions. Dazed and Confused (1993): Richard Linklater’s cult classic film follows a group of high school students on the last day of school as they… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: Five audiobooks guaranteed to make your commute better

    Friday by Robert Heinlein In which an creche-born would-be assassin discovers the joy of polygamy. There isn’t much in the way of plot here, and the misogyny is horribly dated, but there is still plenty of charm in this comic and irreverent romp. Friday is a fun character with brains and beauty in equal bounty who searches for a… Continue reading

  • Comics That Educate

    I like to read comics and I also like to learn. I also like to read comics to learn. If you’re not one of the many people who already read non-fiction comic books, then you might find these reviews and recommendations helpful on where to start. The 14th Dalai Lama is a manga biography of Tenzin Gyatso… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Sports Romance

    We all know that there are seasons for every sport, even if they have started to blur a bit (I swear that basketball and hockey seasons used to be over by April, once upon a time). But with sports-themed romances, the season never ends! In Jaci Burton’s Play-by-Play series she manages to make every single… Continue reading

  • Do you like speculative fiction? Check out Seattle’s own Clarion West!

    The Clarion West Writer’s Workshop is a gem of the Seattle literary world. They hold workshops throughout the year and a fantastic, crowd-funded write-a-thon for writers around the world. Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: Gritty Brits

    As Sinéad O’Connor sang in the ’90s, “England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses,” but the seductive pull of Downton Abbey and its celebration of wealth and landed gentry may have given us rose-colored glasses about merry old England. These films remind us that the United Kingdom is diverse, gritty and much more interesting than… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Love and Mummies

    Amelia Peabody Emerson liked nothing better than to camp for a season in a nice dry tomb while her husband excavated a nearby site. After all, that was how she met him! Crocodile on the Sandbank introduces us to Amelia Peabody, a Victorian bluestocking who is roughly 30 years old, and who absolutely refuses to live the… Continue reading

  • Columbia Branch Staff’s Favorites

    The Columbia Branch staff put up a popular Staff Picks display throughout July to celebrate this year’s Summer Reading Program. Here are some of the books the Columbia Branch staff loved: Blankets by Craig Thompson This graphic novel tells a story of coming of age, first love and early adulthood. Thompson captures those timeless themes perfectly… Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: Scandals on Screen

    Scandals fascinate us. The characters are fearless and their actions are audacious; best of all, you can’t wait for them to get their comeuppance. Here are three classic films that deftly deal with some of the most complex and notorious scandals of the twentieth century. Robert Redford’s Quiz Show (1994) looks at one of the biggest… Continue reading

  • Science Fiction Fridays: The essential James Tiptree, Jr. reader

    James Tiptree, a pseudonym for feminist science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, is one of those authors that feels like a secret treasure just for those genre fans in the know. Her influence can be seen far in wide in authors as diverse as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin and Robert Reed. Few authors have… Continue reading

  • Strange History

    One hot July day a woman walks out of her house and starts dancing. She dances for hours and then days. Soon other people become infected with the dancing plague and before long hundreds are uncontrollably dancing in the streets. Sounds like a great science fiction story, right? Well it actually happened in Strasburg, Germany… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: 2013 RITA Award Winners

    On July 20th, the Romance Writers of America (RWA) announced the winners of the 2013 RITA Awards, which honor excellence in romantic fiction. From supernatural mysteries, to teen dystopian fiction, to fresh contemporary love stories, these books represent the diversity and breadth of the romance genre. The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James Equal… Continue reading

  • Crime Comics: Fiction and Non-Fiction

    Crime comics were big in the 1940s and 50s, but when adoption of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 limited the types and severity of crime cartoonists could depict, their popularity waned. In recent decades crime comics have gained in popularity and stature as several talented creators have worked to resurrect and reinvent the genre,… Continue reading

  • Movie Mondays: Love it or Hate it?

    Have you ever read a movie review or had a conversation with a friend and wonder afterwards: “how could they like that movie?” Or, “I love that movie; how can they hate it?” Here are a half dozen examples of films that have polarized film critics and audiences through the years. Continue reading