The Obsessions of a Crafty Librarian Guider.
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Went a bit mad and I’ve read a wee stack of books.
- Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif by Rick Riordan
- Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- First 2 of the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris - Dead until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas
- and the short ‘between the numbers’ story Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich
Right let’s start with the first two – both Puffin books (it’s their 70th Birthday this year) and I wrote to them to ask if they’d give me some free books for the Lones. Well they did – 30 books including the latest paperback Percy Jackson and Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Big thanks again!). So I decided I should read them. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a international best seller and well deserved because it is brilliant. I love the illustrations and the stories. Like so many teenagers the main character is blissfully unaware of the bigger picture and the results are very funny.
I decided to start with the first Percy Jackson book rather than the one Puffin sent as I am doing Greek Myths with my S1 autistic class and next weeks lesson includes a reading of the first chapter of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. I enjoyed it – very much in the vain of Harry Potter or similar but I thought different enough not to feel like a duplication. Plus it had all the Greek myth stuff to spot or enjoy the variation on. Plus it has a really exciting first chapter and I’m all for a book where the main character is nearly killed in chapter one.
The Sookie Stackhouse series will be ongoing. My my sister in-law was down with Tom’s brother they introduced us to the TV series True Blood. Well we really enjoyed it so I thought I’d try the books, there was a deal from The Book People so I ended up with nine books. The books are fun, written in the first person (Sookie) so your knowledge of everyone else is based on what she knows. The TV show and books are similar though a number of the key characters in the TV show barely register in the books (though it looks like they may have blended a number of elements from the books so maybe they’ll appear more important in later books). My only comment would be the sex scenes (of which there seems to be many both in book and in TV series) seem less sexy than they should be. Perhaps that’s because I’m used to Janet Evanovich.
See the link there? Her ‘between the numbers’ book ‘Plum Lucky’ again sees Stephanie blowing up a car (well technically Lula blew it up but the result was still a toasted car) and hanging out with overly sexy men. In this case it’s Diesel who features strongly, he’s a bit on the magical side and I feel Evanovich’s weakest man. I know I’m being picky but I’m just not drawn to the character. I’m not sure why but I think it might be the super natural element the stories he features in have. I do know this is silly since I’ll happily read fantasy and I just finished writing about two books where the lead bloke in undead but the Stephanie Plum novels have a more believable set up – perhaps I just can’t imagine meeting Diesel on a night out but Ranger and Morelli seem more likely? Mmm… maybe need to think this through more as that didn’t sound any more rational. Anyway while I didn’t rush to read this it was still enjoyable – the little person who thinks he’s a leprechaun, Lula’s love of spandex and Grandma Mazur (she’s my favourite character) it was funny and fun.
Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago. Add a comment
‘Cue the Easter Bunny’ by Liz Evans took me two attempts to read. I started it last year but never really got going. Not sure why it’s easy to read though not as enthralling as Janet Evanovich. It’s the sixth Grace Smith book and I haven’t read the others so perhaps that would have made a difference to my feelings towards the characters.
I’ve never felt any great need to start at the beginning as usually if the book so good enough I’ll just go back to the beginning and eventually re-read the one I read out of sequence. Like any of these silly crimes Grace isn’t the smartest woman on the block when it comes to dodging death threats or hot but dangerous men. Having said that it is fun and was exciting – certainly the end of the book had me gripped and the solution came as a surprise.
Worth a read and if I see others I’d be happy to read them though I’m not rushing to request them from the library anytime soon.
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
Just finished reading this and really enjoyed it. There was no gossip in it just his story and a frankness about the mental health issues in his mothers and his life.
It was really interesting and at times funny – not laugh out loud more gently amusing. It’s worth noting that there is little on the shows or people he’s worked with save for how they changed him so no reading it to get behind the scenes M.A.S.H or West Wing gossip!
This display came about as a discussion with pupils. Originally they decided we should have the egg and chicken as Papier-mâché. But past experience with this left me cynical – mainly because pupils have a tendency to loose patience before enough layers are added so the sculpture tends to implode when the balloon is popped.
After the failed Papier-mâché attempt I convinced them that paper could work as well so we created a paper egg and chick. The idea was partly Easter based but also it’s subject choice time again and philosophy is one of the available subject choices they have in S5/6.
Anyway books included Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder and the Philosophy files by Stephen Law and Daniel Postgate plus on the egg side Dino Egg by Charlie James, Eggs by Jerry Spinelli.
It went well and lots of pupils were asking what the answer was – hence leading to an an explanation of what Philosophy is. Some even took the books out!
Well this past two weeks I’ve had some dread disease (possibly the common cold) anyway it put a stop to reading much with a epic plot or hard words (well at least a lot o f hard words) so instead I decided to catch up on my favourite comic strip – Get Fuzzy. You can catch it here at comics.com. Get Fuzzy is the simple tale of a man and his dog and cat. It becomes less simple because the cat is really evil (at least he tries to be). It is hard to explain why I love it so much. I love the homage to poetry, movies, music etc. that litter the strips, I love the monkey obsession held by Bucky but mostly I love the drawings.
Anyway I read ‘Ignorance Thy Name is Bucky’ and ‘Dumbheart’ this past week between nose blowing and they cheered me up. Read it, love it, share it!
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago. Add a comment
Y: The Last Man is a series of comic books by Brian K. Vaughan which was recommended to me by a man dressed as Clark Kent (I was dressed as Barbara Gordon at the time). Often a tad sweary, certainly full frontal female nudity and a fair bit of gore but also full of pop culture and a really good bit of story telling. The premise is simple – a plague wipes out all the men but one (Yorick) and his male pet monkey (Ampersand) and they then try and get somewhere else and meet a wide range of crazy ladies on the way.
Excellent well worth reading and -point of interest -a popular title to steal from the library. Today saw me read volume 3 and 4 which saw a nice development of the story and a fair bit of drama.
The latest book the be completed is ‘And another thing…’ by Eoin Colfer. This was another very enjoyable book. If it hadn’t been I’d have been most disappointed as 1) I’m a big fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 2)I’m a big fan of Artemis Fowl. Not only that but it was a Christmas present and the only book for ages I wanted to buy new.
It was great fun with the old gang re-united despite the apparent destruction of at least three of them and the Earth (again) at the end of ‘Mostly Harmless’. Warning – the Earth again fails to do well in this book – some things are just not meant to be.
All the classic characters are either in the book or given a nod to and the style is very much in keeping with the Douglas Adams originals. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Another of the read by World Book Day books – Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Now this one I can enthuse about. I was worried at first that it would be similar in disappointment to Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights – neither managed to draw me in. At no point did I fall for our leading man but I did find myself caring a great deal too much for the nameless narrator. I could see how the events of the ball would unfold but I still found myself wishing it could be otherwise. However, the big revelation when it came, came as a complete shock. The final third was a brilliant – tense and very much ‘edge of seat’ stuff. I’m not sure I’d rush to buy my own copy (borrowed this one from the library) since a re-read is unlikely to be as exciting since I know the story but it was excellent first time round.
The Christmas holidays are a time of family, food and reading for me. So the first two books for the holiday were Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick.
Blood Red Snow White I’ve had lying around for a wee while. It drew me in as it mixed fairy tales and Russian history. It’s printed on paper that’s off white and designed to look old and is written as part fairy tale, part history and part biography. Done from the perspective of Arthur Ransome (of Amazon and Swallows fame) it cover the period just before the Russian revolution until the Bolshevists are set in place. It’s written for a teen audience so it’s easy to read but high in interest.
Lucky Jim is on my list of 10 books to read by World Book Day. It was easy enough to read but not much happens it’s one of those development of character books the English department love so much. James is a lecturer who kind of fell into the post and hates lots of things about it. By the end he’s fallen into another phase of his life. It was good, I enjoyed it – I wanted to know how it ended, I even cared for James. I’m not sure I’d agree with the great comic genius of it all, Jeeves and Wooster it isn’t but it was amusing. It’s a three out of five – worth reading, enjoyable but probably not going to stay on my book shelf.
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago. Add a comment
The latest Janet Evanovich is ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’. Now these are simple fluff but very enjoyable fluff. The end even had me laughing out loud in the middle of a silent reading reading english class!
Stephanie Plum once again is split between two steamin’ hot men, more people try and kill them and there is some serious attempts at BBQ (as you would expect these are not hugely successful).
Not much character development, complex scene setting or advanced language but what it does have is a whole lot of fun and a decent crime mystery – exactly the stuff for lazy Sunday reading!
Posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
