Commonwealth Writers Prize 2008 - Shortlist

Not too long ago, I posted the longlist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2008. The various regional winners have now been announced and they now form the shortlist for the major prizes. The winners will be announced in May.

Africa

Best Book: Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria) The Hangman's Game Peepal Tree Press

Best First Book: Sade Adeniran (Nigeria) Imagine This SW Books

Canada and Caribbean

Best Book: Lawrence Hill (Canada) The Book of Negroes HarperCollins Publishers

Best First Book: CS Richardson (Canada) The End of the Alphabet Doubleday Canada

Europe and South Asia

Best Book: Indra Sinha (India) Animal's People Simon and Schuster

Best First Book: Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh) A Golden Age John Murray

South East Asia and South Pacific

Best Book: Steven Carroll (Australia) The Time We Have Taken HarperCollins

Best First Book: Karen Foxlee (Australia) The Anatomy of Wings University of Queensland Press




I took a little time to see a bit more about these books than I did when the longlist was named. There are links to Amazon pages (or other bookstores) where I could find them.

The Hangman's Game sounds really interesting - a mix of modern and historical fiction, with a focus on the slave trade of the 1800s in the historical sections.

Imagine This has really positive reviews on Amazon.co.uk. The story of a young girl who moves from London to Nigeria. Most reviewers seem to be surprised by the fact that the story works so well given that it is told in a journal format.

The Book of Negroes is also focussed on the slave trade and sounds really good.

The End of the Alphabet - a dying man wants to visit the must see places in the world, but must also deal with issues around love and grief.

Animal's People has been on my TBR list since it appeared on the Booker longlist last year.

A Golden Age - set during the Bangladeshi fight for independence from Pakistan.

The Time We Have Taken - a Melbourne suburb is celebrating it's hundredth birthday, and the people look back to see what to commemorate. I might read this just because it is set in Melbourne.

The Anatomy of Wings - a young girl looks for answers following the death of her sister.

Miles Franklin Award 2008 - Longlist

The longlist for the Miles Franklin Award for 2008 was announced last night. This award is probably the premier Australian literature award. I have heard of a couple of them...and read none of them.

Landscape of Farewell by Alex Miller, A&U
Love without Hope by Rodney Hall, Picador
Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital, Fourth Estate
Secrets of the Sea by Nicholas Shakespeare, Harvill Secker
Sorry by Gail Jones, Vintage
The Fern Tattoo by David Brooks, UQP
The Memory Room by Christopher Koch, Knopf
The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll, Fourth Estate
The Widow and Her Hero by Tom Keneally, Vintage

I do intend to read some of them eventually!

The shortlist is announced in April

Playing Editor

Not much blogging this week I am afraid. Busy at work and then tired when I get home, and it is hot, hot, hot here!

This week's Booking Through Thursday question:

How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks:

__________ would have been a much better book if ______________________.

The response I am about to give is honestly the first one I thought of, despite the fact that I read the book over three years ago. Maybe part of the reason that I thought of it is that I have just finished reading People of the Book this week by the same author. Not sure.

So my answer:

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks would have been a much better book if it didn't have such a stupid ending!

If you've read the book you will understand - it kind of takes off an this completely unbelievable tangent that just doesn't fit the rest of the story. Of course, that is just my opinion!

I don't recall seeing that before

I am as big a fan of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer as anyone, but I must confess that I am a little concerned at how much hype there is going to be around the release of Breaking Dawn.

Today I was browsing through my Amazon recommends list over and Breaking Dawn was one of the things that was recommended. Nothing unusual there...until you look at the cover image. Normally if the cover hasn't been released yet, then there is a No Image....errr.....image. But not for this book! This is what is shown for Breaking Dawn.


In case you can't read it, the bottom right hand corner says "Cover to be Released Summer 2008...".

I don't think I have ever seen that before. A sign of the hype to come?

Hero

This week's Booking Through Thursday question:

You should have seen this one coming … Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

I actually did a post not all that long ago about my favourite types of heroes, so I am going to link back to that one as a starting point for this question.

Other memorable heroes are the three main male characters from Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop - Saetan, Daemon and Lucivar - yum, yum, yum!

Maybe because I have a bit of Sara Donati/Rosina Lippi excitement going today, I also wanted to mention Ben from Queen of Swords. When he enters the narrative, he is resourceful and competent, persistent without being overly forceful, good looking and charming, and yet he resides in a place between two worlds - not really comfortable in either. He is exactly what Hannah needed at that point in her life, and a worthy addition to an already strong cast of male characters in the Into the Wilderness series.

yes Yes, YES!!

I won!!!



Thanks everyone who voted for me! I'll let you know what I decide to spend my money on!

Remember this?

***********STICKY POST***********



Some time ago I did a caption post for competition that Rosina Lippi is having over at her blog to celebrate her new book, The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square (in stores now).

Having just gone through the first round of voting, my entry is in the Final 4! I actually didn't expect to be in the final 4 at all because there were lots of good entries...but there I am!

The prize is a good one, (either $100 or $150 in Amazon vouchers, plus some other goodies) so I am going to be unashamedly begging and asking you to go and vote. Vote for which ever one you really like, but just in case you were wondering, this is mine:

As a tanning device, the book was pretty ineffective....but it was a darned good read!

Thanks heaps!

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

Jacques Rebierre and Thomas Midwinter; both sixteen when the story starts in 1876, come from different countries and contrasting families. They are united by an ambition to understand how the mind works and whether madness is the price we pay for being human.

As psychiatrists, their quest takes them from the squalor of the Victorian lunatic asylum to the crowded lecture halls of the renowned Professor Charcot in Paris; from the heights of the Sierra Madre in California to the plains of unexplored Africa. Their search is made urgent by the case of Jacques's brother Olivier, for whose severe illness no name has yet been found.

Thomas's sister Sonia becomes the pivotal figure in the volatile relationship between the two men, which threatens to explode with the arrival in their Australian sanatorium of an enigmatic patient, Fraulein Katharina von A, whose illness epitomises all that divides them.

As the concerns of the old century fade and the First World War divides Europe, the novel rises to the climax in which the question of what it means to be alive seems to hang in the balance.

This is Sebastian Faulk's most ambitious novel yet, with scenes of emotional power recalling his most celebrated work, yet seen here on an even larger scale.

Moving and challenging in equal measure, Human Traces explores the question of what kind of beings men and women really are.

Do you have those authors who you know that you should want to read, but really just don't? Sebastian Faulks is one of those authors for me. Having read Girl at Lion D'or back in my pre-blogging days and being less than overwhelmed by it, I kept on thinking that I really should at the very least try and read Birdsong or Charlotte Gray, but by the time I got to the library checkout or the bookstore checkout the idea had completely slipped from my mind. Then a while ago, this book, Human Traces was nominated for book club discussion in one of the groups that I in. While I am late in reading it, I am definitely glad to have done so, and will be making a more concerted effort to read more by Faulks.

This book is a chunkster, and it is about a subject and ideas that could be considered pretty dry and boring unless it is something that you are already fascinated by them. And yet, it was surprisingly readable.

Following a chance meeting when they were both sixteen years of age, Thomas Midwinter and Jacques Rebriere both decide to devote themselves to the relatively new branch of medicine which looks at the brain and the diseases associated with that organ. For Jacques, this interest and passion is understandable. His own older brother Olivier has been gradually withdrawing into a silent world where he can only be reached infrequently. For Thomas, his decision is a little less straight forward - perhaps he was searching for something and having found it that then became passionate about it. By the end of the novel, however, their passion had become very, very personal to both of them.

Over the years Jacques and Thomas remain in close contact as they finish their schooling and then go onto further education, gaining their medical qualifications. Jacques is working as an intern in Paris. under the influence of many of the foremost European specialists of the time, and Thomas finds himself working in a Victorian asylum. His job is to assess the patients as they come in and allocate them to a ward, all based on nothing more than a visual inspection, and for many of those patients that is where they will spend the remainder of their days. The conditions described are horrific, and yet only a short time earlier these asylums were seen to be at the cutting edge of the treatment of these types of conditions.

In due course, Thomas and Jacques dream to build a treatment clinic start to come true, assisted by Thomas's sister, Sonia, who after an unsuccessful marriage early in the book, ends up married to Jacques.

What follows is a tale of science, of discovery, friendship and family, rivalry, and adventure.

There were occasions throughout the narrative where I did glaze over just a little with all of the discussion about the brain, about the nature of neurological conditions and descriptions of medical procedures, but there were fewer examples of that than I actually expected.

I am kind of torn in some ways about this book, because in order to keep the novel interesting, the author chose to send the two main characters on separate journeys - one to America and the other to Africa - and then he also focused on the life of another character for a short while showing what they went through during WWI. Whilst these trips away from the main narrative were definitely enjoyable and very interesting of themselves, I am not 100 percent sure that they were necessary. At over 600 pages long, there could perhaps of been a bit less padding in the book.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book!






This was the first book that I have read for the Chunkster Challenge 2008.


Cross posted at Historical Tapestry

Any Shadow of the Wind fans out there?

Back in my pre-blogging days I read the fantastic Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I also had the pleasure of participating in an author led discussion group at what was then Barnes & Noble University. One of the things that Carlos Ruiz Zafon mentioned at the time was that his plan was to write a series of loosely connected books, not necessarily featuring the same characters but certainly some of the same settings and themes.

Since that time, I have been trying to track down any news that might be had about the next book and have been able to find nothing! Not long ago I had a brainwave and asked one of my Spanish speaking friends from one of the forums that I participate in if she could find any information on any Spanish sites.

Guess what....there is news!

Apparently the book is called 'El Juego del Angel' - The Angel's Game. It is set on the 20s in Barcelona and is coming out on April 17th. The Publishers didn't want to say anything about what is the book about so there is lots of secrecy.

I know that I can't read it yet, but at least there is now hope that it will come out in English in the not too distant future!

Commonwealth Writers Prize

From the Commonwealth Foundation website:



The shortlists for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award and Best First Book Award have been announced (Wednesday 13 February). Four international judging panels in each Commonwealth region; Africa; Canada and the Caribbean, Europe and South Asia; and South East Asia and South Pacific have chosen the following books in each region from an impressive list of 320 entries.

AFRICA

Best Book
Barbara Adair (South Africa) End Jacana Media
Ifeoma Chinwuba (Nigeria) Waiting for Maria Spectrum Books
Finuala Dowling(South Africa) Flyleaf Penguin Books SA
Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria) The Hangman's Game Peepal Tree Press
Susan Mann (South Africa ) Quarter Tones Harvill Secker
Zakes Mda (South Africa) Cion Penguin Books SA

Best First Book
Sade Adeniran (Nigeria ) Imagine This SW Books
Ceridwen Dovey (South Africa) Blood Kin Penguin Books SA
Dayo Forster (Gambia) Reading the Ceiling Simon and Schuster
Ken Kamoche (Kenya) A Fragile Hope Salt Publishing
Sumayya Lee (South Africa) The Story of Maha South Africa Kwela Books
Carel van der Merwe (South Africa) No Man's Land Umuzi

CANADA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Best Book
Gil Adamson (Canada) The Outlander House of Anansi Press
Erna Brodber (Jamaica) The Rainmaker's Mistake New Beacon Books
Lawrence Hill (Canada) The Book of Negroes HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Robert Hough (Canada) The Culprits Canada Random House Canada
Frances Itani (Canada) Remembering the Bones HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Michael Ondaatje (Canada) Divisadero Bloomsbury Publishing/ McClelland & Stewart


Best First Book
David Chariandy (Canada) Soucouyant Arsenal Pulp Press
Tish Cohen (Canada) Town House HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Arley McNeney (Canada) Post Thistledown Press
Ameen Merchant (Canada) The Silent Raga Douglas & McIntyre
C.S. Richardson (Canada) The End of the Alphabet Doubleday Canada
Neil Smith (Canada) Bang Crunch Knopf Canada

EUROPE AND SOUTH ASIA

Best Book
David Davidar (India )The Solitude of Emperors Weidenfeld & Nicholson
Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)The Reluctant Fundamentalist Viking, Penguin Books India PVT Ltd/Hamish Hamilton
Usha K.R. (India) Girl and a River Penguin Books India PVT Ltd
Hari Kunzru (UK) My Revolutions Hamish Hamilton
Nicholas Shakespeare (UK) Secrets of the Sea Harvill Secker
Indra Sinha (India ) Animal's People Simon and Schuster

Best First Book
Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh) A Golden Age John Murray
Priya Basil (UK) Ishq and Mushq Transworld Publishers
Shandana Minhas (UK) Tunnel Vision Roli Books
Catherine O'Flynn (UK) What was Lost Tindal Street Press
Jeremy Page (UK) Salt Viking, Penguin
JM Shaw (UK) The Illumination of Merton Browne Sceptre

SOUTH EAST ASIA AND SOUTH PACIFIC

Best Book Award
Steven Carroll (Australia) The Time We Have Taken HarperCollins
Sonya Hartnett (Australia) The Ghosts Child Penguin Australia
Sarah Hopkins (Australia) The Crimes of Billy Fish ABC Books
Mireille Juchau (Australia) Burning In Giramondo
Michelle De Kretser (Australia) The Lost Dog Allen & Unwin
Alex Miller (Australia) Landscape of Farewell Allen & Unwin

Best First Book Award
Steven Conte (Australia) The Zookeepers War Australia Harper Collins
Karen Foxlee (Australia) The Anatomy of Wings Australia UQP
Sara Knox (Australia) The Orphan Gunner Giramondo
Carol Lefevre (Australia) Nights in the Asylum Picador
Marcella Polain (Australia) The Edge of the World Fremantle Press
Stephen Scourfield (Australia) Other Country Allen & Unwin






Of the books on this list I have read precisely one book! I think I have one other book on my TBR list. Next week the regional winner in each category is announced and then the winner will be announced in May.

The interesting thing I find in these lists is the diversity or lack of it in each region. Does the fact that there are only Australian nominations in both categories in the South East Asia and South Pacific regions mean that Australian literature is going through a really good patch. Surely it can't mean that there are no shortlist worthy books from other regions. At least in the Canada and the Carribean category there is one non-Canadian author! There is some diversity at least in the other catergories.

This isn't a prize that I normal follow but when I saw it today, I just found these observations interesting.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

A short novel of quite remarkable depth, power and poignancy by a writer at the height of his powers.

It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come....

On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from Ian McEwan - a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

I'm going to give you fair warning - there is going to be a lot of intro to explain what I am doing with this review. I actually wasn't intending to write this review just yet - there are numerous other books that I was going to do first, but then last night I made a small discovery that I thought I might share.

First, a bit of an introduction. The First Tuesday Book Club is a book review show that is shown on the ABC (our public broadcaster - think the BBC without the funding) on the first Tuesday of each month. The regular reviewers are Marieke Hardy (grand daughter of a famous Australian author and actress, screenwriter and blogger in her own right), Jason Steger (book editor of The Age and The Sunday Age) and Jennifer Byrne (journalist and presenter), and they are joined each month by two guest reviewers. The two guest reviewers in this clip were Robyn Butler who is a comedian who just did a comedy series called The Librarians for the ABC, and Geoffrey Robertson (business man as far as I can tell).

My small discovery was that you can view all the reviews online, and that there is one there for On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. So by clicking on the link below you will be taken to the First Tuesday Book Club site, and will be able to watch just under 10 minutes of discussion (warning - lots of spoilers!)


On Chesil Beach discussion


So which of the reviewers did I agree with?

Well, I didn't weep buckets, but I didn't hate it to the point that I would take the risk alienate my spouse (if I had one), so I guess that I am with Jason. There were definitely some good parts of the book, but it did have problems! The set up of the story was excellent, and the ending was moving in a 'my goodness how did these people just let life pass them by' kind of way. The biggest problem for me is that the lack of communication between two people who are seemingly so in love just didn't work for me.


Other Blogger's Thoughts:

So Many Precious Books, So Little Time
Caribou's Mom
The Bluestocking Society
1 More Chapter
An Adventure in Reading
Thoughts of Joy
Leafing Through Life

Interview with Kerry Greenwood

As part of an ongoing series of interviews with Australian Crime Writers, Kerry Greenwood has been interviewed over at Matilda. The interview is mainly about what it is like to be an Australian Crime Writer, but I found it interesting!

I am also going to be keeping an eye out for the details of her next Phryne Fisher novel release - the place she mentions as being the location for the launch isn't all that far away from me! I really enjoy reading the Phryne Fisher series, and when I have caught up on that series I intend to read the other series mentioned as well.

Reading this series of interviews has introduced me to some Australian authors that I had never heard of before, which has to be a good thing!

Brief Gaudy Hour by Margaret Campbell Barnes

The enigmatic Anne Boleyn comes to life in this charming, brilliant portrayal by acclaimed British novelist Margaret Campbell Barnes.

The infamous love of King Henry VIII and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn undertook a rocky journey from innocent courtier to powerful Queen of England. A meticulous researcher, Margaret Campbell Barnes immerses readers in this intrigue and in the lush, glittery world of the Tudor Court. The beauty and charms of Anne Boleyn bewitched the most powerful man in the world, King Henry VIII, but her resourcefulness and cleverness were not enough to stop the malice of her enemies. Her swift rise to power quickly became her own undoing.

The author brings to light Boleyn's humanity and courage, giving an intimate look at a young woman struggling to find her own way in a world dominated by men and adversaries.

Anne Boleyn is one of those historical figures that a lot of people would think they know enough about. If you have read even just a smattering of Tudor novels, then you will know that she was one of the main reasons why Henry VIII wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon, that she failed to deliver the King the thing he most desperately wanted in the world (a son) and yet was mother to one of the great monarchs of English history, and that she was beheaded when the King's attentions moved on to another young lady of the Court, who just happened to be her cousin.

That is, of course, a very flippant summary of Anne Boleyn's life. My point is to demonstrate that it is easy to think that there isn't actually much new to learn about Anne Boleyn - that the stories have already been told. I don't in any way think of myself as a Tudor expert, but I have read a number of books about Anne Boleyn and the other Tudors. It was therefore something of a surprise to realise that there were aspects of Anne's life that I hadn't really read or thought much about before.

One of the major points of differences between this and other Anne Boleyn fiction that I have read was Anne's reasons for first of all holding a very frisky king at arm's length. Several times I have seen the reason giving for not becoming Henry's mistress earlier in their relationship as almost being a case of 'treat him mean, keep him keen', but the reasons given within this novel seemed to me to show a progression from a fairly happy young lady, to a woman determined not to be cast aside as her sister was, to a Queen that many Londoners hated, to a lonely figure almost abandoned when her fate was to be meted out.

We meet young Anne as she has been summoned to Court by her ambitious father, anxious that his daughter should be given the honour of attending to King's sister as she heads to the French court. Anne causes quite a stir in the French court. She is beautiful, accomplished and extremely flirtatious whilst always being careful not to cross the line into being anything other than a chaste young woman. Whilst there though she is witness to the loving, romantic and some could say risky love shared by the King's sister, Mary, and one of his closest advisers, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Anne vows that she too is going to have her own great love story!

This decision alone is enough to leave a trail of disappointed men, most specifically Tom Wyatt who has long loved Anne and would willingly have married her. Needless to say when Anne does find love, she falls hard and fast, and when that love is thwarted by two men, she becomes determined to gain whatever revenge she can, without minding terribly that those two men are the most powerful men in the country.

Whilst Anne's rise to prominence in Henry's affection is very fast, her acquiescence to him is one that takes quite some time, but her demise seems to be even faster again. With the number of loyal friends and retainers dwindling and even some members of her extended family abandoning her, the woman who is condemned to death is quite brittle, almost a victim of her own scheming and plotting and bitterness.

There was one character which didn't quite feel right and that was Anne's stepmother, Jocunda. Whilst her role within the story was fine, and there are other books around which use an assumption that Anne's had a stepmother, it does seem to be something that most historians agree was not actually fact.

Given that this novel was originally published in 1949 (albeit about to be republished by Sourcebooks) a reader would be forgiven for expecting to see some anachronisms in terms of the language and the style of writing, but I really didn't notice many. I was drawn into the story and absorbed from beginning to end, closing the book with a heartfelt sigh of satisfaction. I have seen this book mentioned as a favourite of several readers of historical fiction, and I can certainly see why.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending me this book for review.


Cross posted at Historical Tapestry

Well that's a relief!

I Scored a 100%!

Had to think about one of them though!

Thanks Darla!

The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott

"It's a lump of rock, Stella; nothing more. No stone is worth dying for."

Except it's not just a lump of rock. It's a life sized crystal skull made by the Maya to save the world from ruin; a sapphire so perfect, so powerful, that men down the ages have killed to own or destroy it.

Cedric Owen, the skull's last Keeper, died that it might keep its secret for the next four centuries. Now Stella has found it, and someone has already tried to kill her. Like the skull-keepers of old, she and her partner, Kit, are being hunted - but by whom?

The Mayan prophecies say that if the thirteen skulls already in existence are not reunited, the world will end on 21 December 2012. Four times already, life on earth has been destroyed: by flood and fire, quake and storm. The fifth age ends in a destruction of man's making, and there is only one chance to avert it.

Facing an increasingly implacable enemy, Stellla and Kit struggle to decode the Owen diaries. Their search takes them from the intellectual rigour of Cambridge University to the untamed wildness of England's prehistoric stone circles.

Both know that time is against them and they only have days - hours - left to uncover the secret that may yet save the world.

I have previously read three book by Manda Scott - all of them from the Boudica series of books set in Roman Britain and featuring a fierce warrior princess who is leading the tribes against the Roman invaders. Having enjoyed them all, I was kind of skeptical when I read the description for this book mainly because it was completely unconnected to the Boudica books with a different setting, a different genre. Just different!

As a wedding present, Kit O'Connor takes his new wife Stella Cody to a stunning underground cave where he believes he will find the famous blue crystal skull that has long been part of the legend of St Bede's College, Cambridge. Kit has managed to do what so many have failed to do before him, and that is decode the fabled ledgers that were left behind by Cedric Owen hundreds of years before. With Stella's background as a caver, Kit is sure that this time they will be able to find the skull, but what he doesn't know is what changes this will bring to their relationship and their lives.

Without knowing it, Stella has a deadline looming, and she and Kit must do everything in their power to continue to decipher the hidden messages, along with the help of their friends, and to find the instructions hidden within. One of the major issues though, is exactly who is a friend and who is a foe? Other questions to be answered include why does the skull seem to speak to her? What is it that she needs to do? And what will happen if she doesn't? Who is it that is trying to stop them?

Alternating with the story of what is happening with Kit and Stella, we also follow what is happening in the life of the aforementioned Cedric Owen. He is from a long line of family members whose job it is to be the Keeper of the Skull. It is Cedric's destiny to learn all the secrets of the skull, and to preserve them for one who comes after him. He must leave the messages in such a way that not just anyone will be able to understand, but that the right person will. Along the way Cedric meets with such luminaries from the past as Nostradamus and Dr John Dee. Gradually he learns that the skull that he has in possession (or perhaps he is in its possession given how the skull communicates and directs his life) is likely to be Mayan in origin and is one of a set that must be guarded and protected, and then placed in the exact right position at the exact time in order to stop mankind from destroying the world. The stone leads Cedric (and his companion and swordsman) from England, to France and to South America, and then back to England again many years later.

I have now read a few of these parallel storyline novels where there are the two different stories interwoven to give the whole picture usually with one set in the past and the other in the present. Quite often, I find that I enjoy one of the threads more than the other, but in this case I really didn't feel that one aspect was weaker than the other.

There is suspense and tension in both strands of the narrative - danger, thirst for knowledge and incredible personal risk. As with the Boudica books, there is an underlying mystical themes within the pages of this book. It is obvious that this kind of subject is one that fascinates Manda Scott, and yet she is able to include it in her novels without seeming to be overly evangelical about whatever it is that she believes in.

One of the major questions that this book does ask revolves around the date of 21 December 2012 - a date that apparently several cultures believe will herald the end of mankind - pretty gloomy thought really!

If you are after a very enjoyable thriller filled with suspense, mystery, history and a lot of adventure, this book is definitely worth considering.






Given that this book is the first book that I have read so far this year that has been published this year, there is no way I could not include it as one of my books for the Pub 08 Challenge even though it wasn't on my original list of reads! One down....seven to go!




Crossed posted at Historical Tapestry

Charlaine Harris Question

This is one for all the Charlaine Harris fans out there.

For the time being I am all caught up on the Sookie Stackhouse series and the Harper Connelly series.

Of the two other series that she has written, the Lily Bard series and the Aurora Teagarden series, my library has only the second book in the Lily Bard series. One of the other libraries I am a member of has books 3 and 5 of that series, and books 6, 7 and 8 of the Aurorar Teagarden series. That library is however completely out of my way these days so it would be a pain to get out there to borrow them, and then to take them back again. I guess I could see about an ILL.

My question to you fans out there is therefore, are these other series worth reading? Should I try and track them all down to buy or are they kind of take it or leave it books?


By the way, I have posted this post using the schedule thingy I talked about a couple of posts ago! I really am not up at 3am! Let's hope it worked!



ETA: IT WORKED!!!

Two Harper Connelly reviews

In case you are wondering why I am doing all these two-in-one reviews (keep an eye out for a three-in-one review soon), it is so that I can convince myself that I am catching up! The bonus is that it does mean that there will be cases where I have posted a review of book 3 in a series for example, when I haven't yet posted about books 1 and/or 2 yet. There have very often been weeks between the first reviewed book and the second!

When she was 15, Harper Connelly was struck by a bolt of lightning. She recovered, mostly...she has a strange spiderweb of red on parts of her body, and her right leg has episodes of weakness. Sometimes her right hand shakes. She has headaches. And she can find dead people.

That was the part that interested anthropology professor Dr Clive Nunley.

The professor invited Harper and her stepbrother Tolliver to Memphis to give a demonstration of Harper's unique talent - and what better place to have that demonstration than in a very old cemetery?

Dr Nunley doesn't bother to hide his scepticism, even when Harper stands atop a grave and senses not one but two bodies, a centuries-dead man, the owner of the grave, and a young girl, recently deceased.

The grave is opened and Harper is proved right: the dead girl is Tabitha Morgernstern, an eleven-year-old abducted from Nashville two years previously. That's bad enough, but worse is to come, for Harper tried - and failed - to find the child when she first went missing. The coincidences are making the police very suspicious, so Harper and Tolliver undertake their own hunt to find the killer starting with a nocturnal visit to the cemetery.

And the next morning a third dead body is found in the grave.

When Harper Connelly and her step brother Tolliver Lang travel to Memphis at the request of local anthropologist Dr Clive Nunley they believe it will be a case of doing the presentation and then moving on. Dr Nunley wants to test Harper's skill by taking her to an old cemetery and asking for her to identify how each of the bodies within the graves died. There is no way that Harper can have any forward information about the bodies in the grave so it should silence the skeptics once and for all. However, when Harper identifies one of the bodies as a young girl who only died recently, the skeptics are delighted at her misstep until she is proved right.

Somewhat disturbingly for Harper, the body is that of a young girl who disappeared a couple of years previously and who Harper failed to find. Soon not only are there skeptical people amongst them, there are also suspicious people, including the Police. Matters aren't helped when Harper has a fight with Dr Nunley and he is then found in the same grave the next day.

The mystery in this book is much tighter than the one in Grave Sight, the first book in the series, and there are plenty of people who could have killed the young girl, Tabitha Morgenstern. There are family secrets galore in the Morgenstern family, and nearly all of the family members are under suspicion at one stage or another.

There are a couple of recurring characters in the form of Xylda and Manfred, who add colour and quirkiness to the narrative. Poor Manfred appears to be destined for heartbreak given his feelings for Harper.

The relationship between Harper and Tolliver is again just on the ugh side of squicky for me. Having read the third book now, I am going to leave it at that, but I will say more about it in the next review.

Hired to find a boy gone missing in Doraville, North Carolina, Harper Connelly and her brother Tolliver head there - only to discover that the boy was only one of several who had disappeared over the previous five years. All of them teenagers. All unlikely runaways.

All calling for Harper.

Harper soon finds them- eight victims, buried in the half-frozen ground, all come to an unspeakable end. Afterwards, what she most wants to do is collect her fee and get out of town ahead of the media storm that's soon to descend. But when she's attacked and prevented from leaving, she reluctantly becomes a part of the investigation as she learns more than she cares to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of Doraville-knowledge that makes her the next person likely to rest in an ice-cold grave.

So far, this is the best book in the series for me.

Harper and her step-brother Tolliver are hired by a family member of a young boy who has been missing for a couple of years. The previous town sheriff had decided that the six missing boys from the town were all runaways, but the new sheriff is determined to find out exactly what was going on.

Harper is somewhat surprised when she located not one, not six, but eight bodies on a farm just outside town. Soon it is up to Harper to try and figure out what else connects these poor boys, apart from the fact that they appear to have all been killed by the same murderer.

When Harper is attached and left with stitches in her head, and a fractured arm, it is clear that she is getting a little too close for the murderer to remain comfortable, and it is all that Harper and Tolliver can do to just get out of town. Or at least they would if they hadn't been snowed in.

Gradually the pieces all fall into place, but not without some heartbreaking assistance from a young boy, and with some more kooky antics from Manfred and Xylda.

Okay, spoiler territory now. Highlight below to see what I think about Harper and Tolliver's relationship in this book!


Yes, I know. Much is made in this book of the fact that Harper and Tolliver are not really brother and sister. There is no shared blood between them, but I really struggle with their progressing relationship in this book. Whilst they may not share blood...they have lived as brother and sister for years! And yet, there devotion to each other is touching, especially as Tolliver tries valiantly to keep Harper safe. I'm just not sure I was ready to go all the way with them as a couple!

The finale is action packed, and tense and a fitting ending to the story of a lot of young men who died at the hands of a sadistic and predatory killer.

Blogger users

Do you know about Draft Blogger? I'd never even heard of it before today. I think it is their beta testing environment, but it has at least one cool thing that you can use at the moment - and that is scheduled posting.

Basically it means that you can write a whole bunch of posts and then schedule when you want them to appear on your blog, and it's easy as to do!

If you still want to use future dated posts that show on your blog, that's pretty easy to.

I really should pay more attention to what is going on around me I guess!

Book release frustration

You know how there are sometimes books that you are just waiting to come out with a great sense of anticpation?? I have a few of those, but despite the fact that I check the online stores and the library catalogue every couple of days, they don't seem to be showing the titles I am waiting for. Today, I took it a step further to see whether I could track down any information on the publisher's website, and I have to say, the news wasn't that great!

The Death Mask by Ariana Franklin won't be released here until May 15 - it came out in other countries in December last year, under a different title (The Serpents Tale) I know but surely that doesn't justify such a delay.

Also released late last year was Libba Bray's The Sweet Far Thing. Is it going to be released here? Well, yes, but not until 1 July! Six months after the rest of the world! Gah!

No sign at all of a release date for The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig.

Usually it doesn't matter so much, but I am awaiting these anxiously!


What books are other people waiting for with great anticipation?


Crossposted at Historical Tapestry

The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer

Given that I am exactly the same age as Genie and not married, I thought I might do my review a little differently this time, and intersperse my comments (which could be a little sarcastic - just warning you!) through the back cover blurb. The back cover blurb is in blue and my comments are in black.

Though Genie Michaels would like a husband (To be honest, I'd be happy with a boyfriend), at age thirty-six (what...when did that happen?) and jaded from years of dating fiascoes (in my case jaded from years of not dating fiasco), she's just too tired to make the effort (Abso-freaking-lutely). Lucky for Genie, Prince Charming comes to her in the form of Hugh Spencer (so could not get past thinking about Princess Di's family when I read this name, and especially when they kept on referring to the Spencer family ring), a bestselling author and ideal boyfriend (and where exactly is my Prince Charming?). But when Hugh proposes to the "love of his life" on national television - and it's not Genie (what a jerk)- she's so humiliated that she continues the pretense that she is his fiancee. (Errr...not sure that this is quite the route that I would have taken, but each girl for herself. I would be more likely to drown my sorrows in food, most specifically chocolate)

In no time at all, Genie's parents are booking a reception hall (Trust me, my mother would never book a reception hall for me....and even if she would I so would not want her to. Her idea of a good time and my idea of a good time are veeeerrrryyyy different)! She feels bad about the deception, (and so she should) but her best friend advises her to sit back and enjoy the ride. And just as Genie finally begins to realize that she doesn't need a man to start her life (no, that's totally true, but it would be nice to have one around occasionally)...to buy a home (did that!)...to go after a better job (really should do that)...her real prince shows up. (I could do with a sexy carpenter. The last workman that came to my house to do anything was the very epitome of not sexy).

Readers can count on Sarah Strohmeyer to deliver funny, sexy, big-hearted stories.

I have read all of Sarah Strohmeyer's books and think this is definitely one of her best. It is funny, and romantic, and gave lots of enjoyment as long as you are willing to suspend disbelief about a number of crucial things - like that someone would continue to accept gifts of $1000 cake platters as wedding gifts for a wedding that isn't actually going to happen, and that you could get a really, really big promotion for simply doing two things a bit differently than you normally do.

Whether this book falls into Women's Fiction or Chick Lit, I'm not really sure. The heroine undergoes a fairly typical chick-lit kind of journey from somewhat frumpy to fabulous , there's a love triangle...sort of...and there is a too die for true love. Having said that in the Author note she says that she is writing women's fiction...so I could well be wrong.

It is a lot of fun to read. I have read all of this author's books so far, and I can definitely see her writing getting stronger. I look forward to her next book which is out in June.

Question

Is there an easy way to convert tracks on an audio CD to MP3 files. I want to put some tracks off of a CD that I own on my MP3 player.

Heroine

This weeks Booking Through Thursday question:

Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

Well this looks like an easy question doesn't it! And yet it is not. How to go through the characters who live in my memories and pick just a few of them. That task is not helped by the fact that I definitely am more hero centric in my reading, particularly in romances. A lot of times if the hero is to die for, the heroine can be kind of wishy-washy and it will not bother me at all. Unfortunately the same can not be said if it the characteristics are the other way around.



Onto the actual question then!

Eleanor of Aquitaine - as portrayed by Sharon Penman in When Christ and His Saints Slept and the Justin de Quincey novels, and by Elizabeth Chadwick in her William Marshal novels. Passionate, feisty, powerful, only woman to be queen of both England and France - what a woman!

I have to confess to being fascinated by Eleanor and even just the smallest of glimpses of her in a novel make me extremely happy!




Others that I thought about mentioning for a variety of reasons:

Claire Randall from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon

Tatiana from The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons

Amelia Peabody from the Amelia Peabody series by Barbara Peters

Eve Dallas from the In Death series by J D Robb

Surely it's no coincidence that these strong and fascinating women have equally strong and fascinating men in their lives?? Just in these cases the author manages to give both characters balance in their books!

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about.

If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence.

Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter such a fence.

I actually finished reading this book about 3 weeks ago, but every time I sat down to think about writing a review I was really undecided about what I was going to write about.

The main reason for this is that in discussing even the basics of the plot, you will be giving away major pieces of information about the book itself, and by even knowing just those small things the reading experience will be changed. That is quite unusual in itself because normally you can at least give some details of setting, time frame, basic plot details etc without giving too much away, but with this book you really can't.

There were several times during this YA novel that I had moments where I suddenly got whatever it was I was reading about. For example, it took me about 30 pages to realise exactly what the perspective was that the story was being told from. That may well be a little slower than some readers, but given that the last book I read about a similar time frame had some details in it that I 'thought' might be related to what I was reading about, I am not going to beat myself up about it.

Ultimately, this was a very powerful novel, despite the fact that it is only 180 pages long. There are surprises littered throughout - surprising friendships, surprising discoveries and definitely a surprising ending.

There were times that certain aspects of the writing style got a little irritating - there was a particular phrase that was used to describe the main character's older sister over and over again. As long as you can allow those few flaws to be overlooked, this is a short, emotionally packed young adult story that adults can be challenged by and enjoy.

This is definitely a book to be added to your To Be Read list.


Other Blogger's Thoughts:

Maw Books
Blue Archipelago
Books Love Me
Melody's Reading Corner
Out of the Blue
A Reader's Respite

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man begins the tale that has led to his fateful meeting with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting....

Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. Top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by Underwood Samson, an elite firm that specializes in the 'valuation' of companies ripe for acquisition. He thrives on the energy of New York and the intensity of his work, and his infatuation with the elegant, beautiful America promises entry into the Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back home in Lahore.

For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez's meteoric rise to personal and professional success. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power and maybe even love.

With echoes of Camus and Fitzgerald, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a riveting, devastating exploration of our divided yet ultimately indivisible world.

I can not tell you how surprised I am at how much I really loved this book especially given the way that the story itself is told.

The main character Changez offers assistance to an unnamed American tourist one afternoon. After shepherding the tourist to a small cafe, so begins a long afternoon/evening where Changez tells his tale. The interactions with the other characters are only show as they are reflected through Changez's own speech. At no time do we hear from the tourist, or the waiter or any of the other characters of whom we generally only see fleeting glimpses.

The story that Changez tells is one of searching for identity and belonging and love. Changez had spent many years in America studying at Princeton, getting top grades and eventually recruited to one of the most sought after jobs following graduation. Everything is going well for Changez. Not only does he have the job of his dreams, earning loads of cash, travelling first class, but he is also falling in love with the beautiful Erica who introduces him to the creme de la creme of New York society.

Then comes 9/11, and while at first there is little change for Changez gradually he begins to look at the implications of the political decisions that are made, and wonder about his own identity in relation to these events. He also begins to understand that Erica's seemingly confident grace is a barely there shell over a fragmented and tortured psyche.

As he tells the stranger his story and they share a meal and drinks, we get to see small glimpses of clues about what kind of man it is that Changez is dining with and what he might be doing in Lahore, but a lot of the information we are given is implied rather than presented to the reader on a platter.

The fact that all 180 pages of this book are portraying this one meeting, and that there is so little interaction and clarity around the other characters would normally be something that would drive me nuts, but in this authors capable hands, there was no question of impatience on my part. I was prepared to let the details unfurl at precisely the speed that the author was ready to reveal them and to savour the skill involved in telling such a strong story from such a limited perspective.

Quite often books that are nominated for prizes can be a bit inaccessible and can feel like something of a labour to get through, but not this one! Every now and again there is a gem that is profound and yet completely readable, and this is one such case.

Totally loved it!

Other Blogger's Thoughts:

Bold. Blue. Adventure

Either...

Bloglines is down or it is VERY quiet in blogland!

Or maybe it is that everyone else in the world has something better to do than I do!

It's Done Now

If I have inadvertently left anyone off the blogroll, please let me know and I will fix it straight away.

I don't know why I always leave this things to so late at night, but it is now nearly 12.30 in the morning and it is time for me to sleep!

Courting the Countess by Barbara Pierce

A scoundrel whose fame as an artist, libertine, and notorious seducer of beautiful women is ongoing fodder for the ton, Mallory Claeg has a secret obsession-Brook Meylan, Lady A'Court, a beautiful widow who abandoned London two years earlier, deliberately severing all ties to her past. Under the pretense of his interest in the primitive landscape of the Cornish coast, Mallory watches her, fascinated and utterly mesmerized by her beauty...

Brook tried to escape the gilded cage of the ton's merciless gossip, the memory of a cruel husband, and the pity of well meaning friends. But meddling relatives and unwanted suitors shatter her peace. At first, Mallory Claeg was another intrusion. Yet his sinfully handsome face and irresistible charm bring both temptation and torment. Now Brook must choose between opening her heart-or sealing it off forever...

This author was Author of the Month for November in the HistoricalRomanceChat group that I belong to. Prior to that I had seen her name around but had never had any inclination to pick up anything by her. And it seems that that inking was with good reason!

What happens when an author gets one thing really right in a book, but the rest just doesn't do it for you. Well for me, it means that the book ends up being really, really average!

Brook Meylan, Lady A'Court has been living out in the country away from the ton, after there was a huge scandal surrounding her husband's early demise. Her family is now trying to convince her to return to the bright lights of London, and her husband's heir, his cousin, is trying to convince her to become his bride. Brook has said that she will not marry anyone, leaving her unwanted suitor a little vexed.

One day, as she is walking along the cliffs near her home she meets notorious rake and artist Mallory Claeg. Over a period of months Brook and Mallory begin to have a friendship, that explodes into passion, usually played out in out of the way locations in woods and things like that.

The romance between Brook and Mallory would have been fine by itself, but instead there is so much back story here that the heart of the novel gets a little lost. Both Brook and Mallory have terrible secrets from their past - hers in the past treatment by her husband, loss of her child, and the ongoing treatment by her mother in law. Mallory is also carrying the memories of how his first wife died. In addition, every time we were introduced to characters from earlier books in the series (which I haven't read) there was inevitably their emotional baggage to be sorted through. Too much!

For a while it wasn't clear exactly who the villain of the piece was going to be. In the end it was someone from his past, but Brook's suitor certainly seemed to be a likely candidate for a little while there. And then there was the figure from Mallory's past, but it could well have been his harridan of a former mistress as well.

The first thing that really threw me in this book was the names - Brook and Mallory. Maybe it was just the mood I was in, but for me Brook is definitely not a name for a historical romance (too many Bold and the Beautiful connotations) and Mallory...well enough said!

From the epilogue it does seem as though there was meant to be a further book in this series, but from what I can tell it was never written. That in itself closes the book on a strange note too.

Actually, of everything in the novel, Mallory was the thing I liked most. Whilst he was most definitely a rake-like character, he also had a sense of purpose, a sense of passion for something outside of himself, and I had no doubt that he had fallen for Brook completely - as to why....well, I never really felt very strongly about Brook myself, so I just couldn't see it, but to be fair, I have said here on numerous occasions that I am all about the hero when it comes to romances!

One other thing that is relatively positive - the cover is very definitely representative of a scene in the novel, which isn't always the case.

This is the only book by this author that my library currently has. There would have to be a lot of buzz around the place for me to even think about handing over my hard earned for any of her other books.

Book Giveaway: Joshilyn Jackson's The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

I have been meaning to try reading Joshilyn Jackson's books for years, but never quite managed to get onto it! Maybe winning it will be the shove that I need. You too can win it by visiting Dee's Book Dish and participating in a couple of contests!

Laurel Gray Hawthorne needs to make things pretty, whether she's helping her mother make sure the very literal family skeleton stays buried or turning scraps of fabric into nationally acclaimed art quilts. Her estranged sister Thalia, an impoverished Actress with a capital A, is her polar opposite, priding herself on exposing the lurid truth lurking behind middle class niceties. While Laurel's life seems neat and on track--a passionate marriage, a treasured daughter, and a lovely home in suburban Victorianna--everything she holds dear is suddenly thrown into question the night she is visited by the ghost of a her 14-year old neighbor Molly Dufresne.

The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. Molly's death is inexplicable--an unseemly mystery Laurel knows no one in her whitewashed neighborhood is up to solving. Only her wayward, unpredictable sister is right for the task, but calling in a favor from Thalia is like walking straight into a frying pan protected only by Crisco. Enlisting Thalia's help, Laurel sets out on a life-altering journey that triggers startling revelations about her family's guarded past, the true state of her marriage, and the girl who stopped swimming.

Non-Fiction All the Way?

Now there's a post title I would NEVER have expected to see on my blog!

Gautami has started a new meme about non-fiction, and I have had it sitting in my draft for about a week! I am so sorry that I didn't get to this earlier Gautami.

What issues/topic interests you most--non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, theatre infinite topics that has nothing to do with novels?

For me, I am most likely pick up books about history, cooking or biographies/autobiographies/memoirs. Actually, when it comes to cooking I am most likely to buy magazines, and never actually get around to reading them but I am partial to a beautiful looking cookbook as well.

Would you like to review books concerning those?

In theory, if I read the book, I review them, although you all know that I am notoriously behind in my reviews! I am keeping up to date with the ones that I am currently reading but not making much impact on the backlog I have.

Would you like to be paid or do it as interest or hobby? Tell reasons for what ever you choose.

Whilst it would be nice to be paid to review, many of my reviews are purely based on my gut reactions to what I read and therefore can be changeable which I don't think bodes well for doing it professionally. In terms of being paid, I am still at the point where I am thrilled when I receive a package contains free books, so I am still happy with that for the time being. If anyone wants to give me money as well I am all open for that too!

Would you recommend those to your friends and how?

Mostly word of mouth. Luckily the girl I sit next to at work is a reader too, so we often have a chat about a variety of things including what we are reading, books we have loved etc.

If you have already done something like this, link it to your post.

Here's a link to everything that I have tagged as non fiction on my blog.

Please don't forget to link back here or whoever tags you.

Given that most people have already done this (again, sorry for being so slack!) I am not going to specifically tag anyone, but if you are interested please feel free to do it!

Top 50 Children's Books

A UK charity called Booktrust recently surveyed 4000 people to ascertain what the top 50 kids books were. Here are the results (with kudos to Daily Mail)

1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
3. Famous Five, Enid Blyton
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
5. The BFG, Roald Dahl
6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
7. The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
10. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11. The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
13. Matilda, Roald Dahl
14. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss
16. The Twits, Roald Dahl
17. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
18. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
19. The Malory Towers series, Enid Blyton
20. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
21. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22. Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H.C. Andersen
23, The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
24. The Witches, Roald Dahl
25. Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26. The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27. Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett
30. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
31. A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond
32. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
33. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
34. Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney
35. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36. Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37. Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38. Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proysen
39. We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen
40. The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41. Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42. The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43. Miffy, Dick Bruna
44. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
45. Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46. The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47. Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48. Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49. The St. Clare's series, Enid Blyton
50. Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey

My favourite kids books were the Magic Faraway Tree books and the Wishing Chair books by Enid Blyton. When I was young reading was all about escape for me, and what better way to escape than to be able to go to different lands on adventures.

When I was a little older it was Trixie Belden books - but that is because I had a thing for Jim!

Are your favourite kids books on the list?

BTW, I have already posted this video once this month, but seeing as it is number 45 on the list...how could I resist??


ETA - The Flat Stanley video has been removed from Youtube, so instead I bring you I'm Not Going Out There!

Island in the Sea of Time by S M Stirling

During a perfect spring evening on Nantucket a violent storm erupts and a dome of crawling, colored fire blankets the island. When the howling winds subside and the night skies clear, the stars appear to have shifted. The mainland has become a wilderness of unbroken forest, where tools of bronze and stone litter the beaches, and primitive natives scatter in terror.

A startling phenomenon has occurred: The island of Nantucket has been swept into the long-ago past. With its inhabitants adrift in the year 1250 B.C., there is only question to be answered: Can they survive?

A provocative and endlessly inventive spin on the classic adventure story. Island in the Sea of Time takes you on a journey of wonder, discovery and imagination.

I first heard about this book on one of the forums that I frequent, when some members started talking about the trilogy, and I thought I would give them a go even though science fiction/alternative history is not really my thing. I don't mind a bit of time travel occasionally though, although travel sort of indicates to me that there is some kind of onward (or return) journey after the initial travel, which for the characters there really isn't in terms of time at least.

My decision to request this book from the library was sort of endorsed when not long after Carl V announced The Sci-Fi Experience and I decided to participate by reading this book.


So I'll start by talking about my experience. I will confess that I struggled a little bit with the reading of this book. At 600 pages long it is a chunkster and so it would have normally taken me at least 4 days to get through at the best of times, but this time it took me well over a week. I think part of the reason for that is that this was a book that had lots of technical jargon and descriptions within the text. It wasn't too bad first thing in the morning when I was awake, but in the afternoons coming home on the train, I really struggled to get through certain sections within the book. I kept on losing track and getting distracted from reading, which doesn't happen all that often.

I do now find myself wondering what my sci-fi experience would have been like had I read a book by a female author, because to me, as I read this book, it was very obvious to me that this was a book written by a man. There are three main romantic relationships that happen within the book, and all of those were practically instantaneous developments. There was also lots of description about creating usable weapons and salvaging items from the 2oth century and making them usable in the new now, body armour and the like, lots of martial arts talk and plenty of battles. Not that you don't get those things in books by female authors, just that maybe the ratio of time spent describing those things would be different.

One of the things that I did find myself wondering is about how book genres are decided. This book, for example, hinges on one event that is completely unexplainable at this point in the series (so is that what makes it sci-fi?) but then for the most part it seemed to me to be something of an alternate history, a story of human endurance and flexibility in terms of being able to survive, and exploration (albeit made easy by the fact that the characters had 3000 years of history at their fingertips). So was it the time travel element that made this sci-fi, and if so does that mean that time travel romances are sci-fi, or perhaps time travel is only one aspect and it really depends on what else is in the book.

The whole premise of the book hinges on the fact that one night there was some kind of unusual electrical storm and suddenly the whole island of Nantucket plus some of the waters around it, is thrown back in time to 1250BC. Luckily there is an astrologer on the island who is able to calculate this for them, along with a Professor of Classical history and just the right people with handy hobbies that will definitely help the marooned island to survive and eventually maybe to prosper. The chief of police quickly becomes the leader, with the role of military leader taken over by the captain of the US Coast Guard who was caught up in the Event as well. As time passes a rudimentary governing system must be agreed on and implemented with more solid hierarchical structures required later to enhance the stability of the economy and the relationships within island life.

When a flight over to the mainland confirms that where the city of Boston should be there is nothing but forest, people on the island begin to comprehend what has happened to them. Their most immediate concern is how to survive - how to produce food and keep whatever resources they have available to them (like fuel and electricity) going for as long as possible.

Once it becomes clear that there is no way known that the island can support all the people on it, the leaders know that they are going to have to start trading and that they are also going to need to do things like start outposts in some far off places so that they can get what they need - for example, they know that in order to have salt that they are going to have to have people harvesting natural salt flats in Central America as there is no way to get any from the island itself.

One of the major issues though is that any exposure to other peoples brings major risk - exposure to 20th century diseases that could wipe out single tribes in a matter of days, difficulties in communicating in unknown languages that could lead to war as easily as friendship, and how does everything they do affect the history that has already been but not already been....if you know what I mean.

Within the group of island people there is inevitably dissent for whatever reasons, and there are also people who want to take certain steps for their own purposes. After the Americans manage to do some trading with some people in what is now Southern England, one of the more ambitious and morally suspect members of the crew decides that he wants to set himself up as a kind of warlord, using the advantages that he has in terms of 20th century technology that can be applied to various aspects of life, most particular in the way the tribes of the area fight wars, and much of the drama in the novel is based around the confrontation between good and bad.

There are moments of genuine fun sprinkled throughout the novel - at one point as he rides into battle, the bad guy breaks into a chorus of Bad to the Bone - completely nonsensical to all the tribesman around him, with the exception of those of the modern day characters that followed him to the dark side, willingly or otherwise.

A lot of the characters are somewhat two-dimensional, and some of the relationships are a little cliched, but overall it's an interesting exercise in the what-if line of conjecture.

I am planning to read the next book in the trilogy, so perhaps my summary should be something along the lines of reading this book didn't make me want to say I am never reading sci-fi again, so that's a positive thing right?

Lord of Fire by Gaelen Foley

After years of preparation, he has baited his trap well, luring the depraved members of Society into his devil's playground so he can earn their trust and uncover their secrets.

Yet no one in London suspects that Lord Lucien Knight is England's most cunning spy, an officer who has sacrificed his soul for his country. Now an unexpected intruder has invaded his fortress of sin, jeopardizing his carefully laid plans - and igniting his deepest desires.

Beautiful, innocent Alice Montague finds herself at the mercy of scandalous Lord Lucien. But as he begins his slow seduction to corrupt her virtue, Alice glimpses a man tormented by his own choices, a man who promises her nothing but his undeniable passion...

This book is the second book in the Knight Miscellany series by Gaelen Foley. With the first book in the series (The Duke) I apparently quite liked it when I read it, but couldn't remember a darned thing about it when it came to writing the review. Even when I was reading this book, there would be a mention about Robert and Belinda, and I seriously could remember very little. I have to say...there is not much chance of not being able to remember this book.

Gaelen Foley has written a historical romance that features spies the way spy romances should be written. Many times it feel as though the spies that we meet in romances are spy drama - the lite version, but that was definitely not the case here.

Lucien Knight has captured my imagination - the man is everything I like my heroes to be. Dark, tortured (literally), struggling with the darker side of himself whilst falling deeply in love with his heroine. The fact that he basically blackmailed Alice to stay with him, and tried to then corrupt her only to suddenly find that he wanted more than he thought he did from her was well done, and the scene where he finds himself unburdening himself to Alice, stepping out from the facade of invincible spy was really well written.

Alice has a few moments that border on TSTL - if I was in a strange house, the very first thing I would do is to follow the crowds who are all hiding their identities, get into a boat and follow a stream, and then stay in the midst of what would appear to be an orgy. Other than those moments, she was definitely a match for Lucien, prepared to walk away from him when he will not be honest with her, despite knowing that she could well be ruined, and would be totally heartbroken.

The villain in this one was definitely not cardboard cut out as so many romance novel villains are, and there were definite consequences for all the characters as the events unfolded.

i can't wait to read the story of Lucien's twin brother, Damien. I loved reading about the relationship between the brothers - estranged by circumstance and choice but still connected to each other in many, many ways.

If you like historical romance novels that feature dashing and daring spies, then this one could well be worth a read.

Format

This week's Booking Through Thursday question:

All other things (like price and storage space) being equal, given a choice in a perfect world, would you rather have paperbacks in your library? Or hardcovers? And why?

I don't buy a lot of hardcovers, and I do buy a lot of mass market paperbacks, but it is the larger size trade paperbacks that are my favourites. They aren't so heavy to carry around in my handbag as hardcovers, and are a bit better quality than the smaller, cheaper paperbacks.