Johhny and the Dead

by Terry Pratchett

I liked this second book in the series better than the first, Only You Can Save Mankind. The characters are quirky, interesting and most of them are dead. Pratchett's humor is always wonderful and usually insightful.

I liked this passage:

It occurred to Johnny again that the human mind, of which each of his friends was in possession of one almost standard sample, was like a compass. No matter how much you shook it up, no matter what happened to it, sooner or later it would end up pointing the same way.

If you are trying to encourage a young reader I think this book would be great. And I would go with this one rather than the first, it really doesn't need to be read in order. The suggested reading level is ages 9-12, but I think it can be appreciated by much older readers, too.

Seeing Redd

by Frank Beddor

I love that there are so many books available and in so many different genres. We have the freedom to branch out and enjoy the best of the creative world, not just in books but in art, furniture, vehicles, television, movies, and food. Creative is the perfect word to describe my most recent completion.

I read the first book in this series, The Looking Glass Wars, two year ago and loved it. I encouraged my daughter to read it and she loved it. She has laid claim to the book! Which I actually don't mind because I don't tend to reread very often, but she might. Besides one of the joys of being a mom is watching your child's library and love of books grow.

When Seeing Redd arrived in the mail a few weeks ago she was ecstatic. Lucky for me she was 'into' another book so I was able to read it first.

Alyss of Wonderland’s rule has only just begun and already those who prefer chaos to peace are threatening to destroy everything worth imagining. Trailed by newly appointed Royal Bodyguard Homburg Molly, Alyss does her best to keep pace with the spiraling, non-stop demands of being Queen while attempting to evade Molly for a few private moments with Dodge. Alyss’s life is already a challenging mix of duty, love and imagining when a series of phantom sightings set fire to an urban myth of her Imperial Viciousness’s return and have everyone… Seeing Redd.
Has Redd somehow freed herself and her chief assassin, the Cat, from the confines of the Heart Crystal to challenge her niece once again? If not, then who has resurrected Redd’s brutal footsoldiers, the Glass Eyes, and set them loose to attack Wonderland on all sides?
Battles rage, looking glasses explode and the Alyssians are once again uniting to defend White Imagination in this fast-paced second book in The Looking Glass Wars trilogy.

It's not necessary to have read Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to enjoy this splendid take-off. I have but my daughter has not and it doesn't seem to diminish her enjoyment of the book. The story of Alice is so well known and the characters are familiar. We already know the evil Queen of Hearts, we just didn't know that she is Alyss's aunt Redd.

I would classify this trilogy as science fiction more than fantasy. The alternative world of Wonderland is quite the scientific marvel especially when compared with Alice's quiet life as the daughter of the Dean of Christ's church in 1860's England.

The Light Fantastic

by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. His books are pure delight - besides being witty and imaginative, they are well-written, have a great storyline and include full-bodied, whimsical characters. The Light Fantastic is Pratchett's second Disc-World novel and is a direct continuation of the story presented in The Colour of Magic.

Favorite characters include Rincewind who is the main protagonist. While attending wizard school he got a powerful spell stuck in his head that seems to have made lesser spells afraid to lodge there, thus he has never been good at magic. His companion in both books is a tourist named Twoflower who has a rosy way of looking at things. I really like Twoflower. My 3rd favorite character is Luggage, with his multitudes of tiny feet and definite attitude. Luggage is just that - luggage, a trunk in fact. He belongs to Twoflower and is fiercely loyal.

"Twoflower was a tourist and fundamental to his very existence was the rock-hard belief that nothing bad could really happen to him because he was not involved."

Chuckled at this description: "He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk."

"She picked him up by his apron straps and glared at him eye to eye. Torn though her dress was, disarrayed though her hair was, she became for a moment the symbol of every woman who has caught a man with his thumb on the scales of life."

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

Whew! Finished at last. Seems like I spent months on this book but it was really only 3 weeks. I read several other books at the same time because I would get a bit tired of JS&MN and needed other outlets.

I enjoyed the basic story involving the two magicians, the unnamed slave, the gentleman with the silvery hair and the two enchanted women. Much of the groundwork held my interest, but there was just too much. I think the book would have been totally wonderful if some of it had been left out.

I came to a vivid realization that England has a wonderful history steeped in magic. We don't have that in the young country of America. One review I read on JS&MN talked about the mythological references. I probably missed most of that because I don't have a good background in myths. Because of this book, I have an increased interest and that's a good thing.

I appreciated the history and enjoyed this reference to the London servants making fun of some imported servants brought in from Northern England. "...the used words like goosegogs, narrow-grass, betty-cat and battle-twigs, when they should have said gooseberries, asparagus, she-cat and earwigs."

At one point Strange gave Norrell a list of books he wanted to borrow from Norrell's library. "It was not a list to delight Mr Norrell's soul. It was full of first thoughts crossed-out, second thoughts crossed-out and third thoughts put in at angles and made to wriggle around other words that were in the way."

And this commentary on arguments between a married couple.
In the end is it not futile to try and follow the course of a quarrel between husband and wife? Such a conversation is sure to meander more than any other. It draws in tributary arguments and grievances from years before - all quite incomprehensible to any but the two people they concern most nearly. Neither party is ever proved right or wrong in such a case, or, if they are, what does it signify?"

Ender's Game

by Orson Scott Card

The story is set in the future, approximately the year 2070. An alien race known as the Formics (often called the Buggers by children) has attacked Earth twice. Humans were very nearly destroyed the second time around, and would have been annihilated were it not for the work of Mazer Rackham. Now the government is preparing for the next invasion, gathering all of Earth's brightest children and sending them to Battle School, where they will learn to use their military genius to win the next Formic War.

The story centers around a child named Andrew Wiggin (given the nickname "Ender" by his sister's mispronunciation of his name). At the beginning of the book, Ender is only six. He is recruited into the IF (the International Fleet) and taken to Battle School, where he endures six years of intensive training. But Ender is not just another one of the children at Battle School; he is the one on whom all the government's hopes are pinned. For Ender is the best of the best, the genius among genius, and he is to be the next commander of the human fleet.

I wonder if J.K. Rowling ever read Ender's Game. As I read it I often thought of Harry Potter. Maybe it was because both books focused on young children or that the training games reminded me of Quiditch. Also, the young heroes of the books have to grow up so fast and face so much responsibility - They both hold the lives of so many in their hands. Even though I can't quite identify the similarities, in my mind at least, there was a similar feel.

Ender's Game was first conceived of when Card was only 16 years old. It was many years later that it was first published in a Science Fiction magazine as a short story. Even later Card developed it into a book that was awarded the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel. Ender's Game is used by the Marine Corps University at Quantico as a textbook on the psychology of leadership.

Thanks to Chris I own Speaker for the Dead which is a follow-up to Ender's Game. Card has said that Ender's Game was written specifically to establish the character of Ender for his role of the Speaker in Speaker for the Dead, the outline for which he had written before novelizing Ender's Game. I'm excitedly looking for to reading Speaker for the Dead.

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle
It such a good feeling to finally read a book that has been on The List for ages and ages. Thanks to a couple of challenges it finally became pressing to read it.

A Wrinkle in Time is not as subtle with it's Christian teachings as The Chronicles of Narnia and I doubt it would receive a Newbery Award in today's world, so I'm glad it was written when it was. The main theme is the battle of good vs. evil and, in the end, good is triumphant. Woven into the main theme are the ideas of reliance on others, expectations, going it alone, love, family, etc. One of my favorites is the idea that some of the parts of our personalities we regard as weaknesses can become the very strengths we need to succeed.

A favorite quote:

Mrs Whatisit: A sonnet is a very strict form of poetry is it not? There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes? And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?

Calvin: You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?

Mrs Whatsit: Yes. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

The Looking Glass Wars

by Frank Beddor

This synopsis is from The Looking Glass Wars website. You really need to visit and watch the trailers, look at the imagination gallery, etc.

"The Looking Glass Wars unabashedly challenges the world’s Carrollian Wonderland assumptions of tea parties, dormice and a curious little blonde girl to reveal an epic, cross dimensional saga of love, murder, betrayal, revenge and the endless war for Imagination. Meet the heroic, passionate, monstrous, vengeful denizens of this parallel world as they battle each other with AD-52’s and orb generators, navigate the Crystal Continuum, bet on jabberwock fights and slip each other the poisonous pink mushroom. Finally, someone got it right. This ain’t no fairytale.

Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee through the Pool of Tears after a bloody palace coup staged by the murderous Redd shattered her world. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the surreal, violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical children’s sojourn Alice in Wonderland. Alyss had trusted Lewis Carroll to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere would find her and bring her home.

But Carroll had got it all wrong. He even misspelled her name! If not for the intrepid Hatter Madigan, a member of the Millinery (Wonderland’s security force) who after a 13 year search eventually tracked Alyss to London, she may have become just another society woman sipping tea in a too-tight bodice instead of returning to Wonderland to battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts."

I bought this book for my daughter. Can't wait until she reads it so we can discuss it. I'm looking forward to reading the next two in the series.

Something Rotten

by Jasper Fforde
Book 4 in the Thursday Next series

I get the biggest kick out of this series. Fforde has a phenomenal imagination and he tells a great story. If you plan to read this series be prepared to suspend reality and enjoy a gripping, hilarious journey in an alternative 1980's England where there are chronoguards, bioengineered dodo birds and literature holds a prominent place. These books are mysteries, sci/fi, fantasy, drama, comedy with a bit of romance. Absolutely delightful.

In this episode Thursday Next returns to Swindon and her former job as a Literary Tech. She fights to prevent Goliath from from becoming a world dominating religion led by a fictional character. Her husband was eradicated from history in an earlier book and Thursday tries to get that eradication reversed. You can read a very nice review here.

The title of the book comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet - "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark." It describes a situation of corruption. Since the character Hamlet accompanies Thursday Next back from the world of fiction and Denmark is being blamed for all England's woes, the title is clever and appropriate. Also, the fictional character who is presently serving as Chancellor of England is embroiled in illegalities in order to rule the world. Something rotten, indeed.

This little description caught my attention: "Destiny's inelegant toe creaks the boards to your door."

Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes
This is my 1960's Decade Challenge book. I've wanted to read it ever since 1968 when I saw the movie Charly that was based on this book. The movie starred Cliff Robertson in the starring role as Charly Gordon, a mentally retarded man in his 30's. I thought Robertson did an awesome job. Now that I've read the book, my next movie from Netflix is Charly. It will be interesting to see how the movie and book compare. My gosh, the movie was nearly 40 years ago (and I'm only 28. How does that happen?!)

Charly has an IQ of 70, but he is anxious to learn and works very hard in his classes for the mentally retarded. He has a job at a bakery running errands and cleaning. It's a job he loves and there are people there who are his friends. All this is about to change when Charly is selected for an experimental operation that may raise his intelligence. The same procedure has been very successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

The book is written as a series of Project Reports by Charly himself, starting before the operation and continuing for 7-8 months afterwards. The first entries capture Charly's innocence and fear and his desire to be smart. The entries are fraught with misspelled words and reveal Charly's low intellect. As the operation proves to be a success we follow Charly's rapid rise in intelligence. He peaks with an IQ of 185, above that of the scientists behind the experiment.

Charly's emotional growth does not keep pace with his intellectual development. Memories from his childhood were now accessible to him in vivid detail and he has to try to deal with them. There are other things he's not emotionally ready to handle, such as relationships, especially those with women.

I'm glad I read Flowers for Algernon and highly recommend it. If you're looking for a mild science fiction that's interesting and quick to read, with emotional charge, this is a perfect choice.

In addition tocounting for the By the Decades Challenge, Flowers for Algernon also counts for the Banned Books and the TBR challenge.

Wee Free Men

by Terry Pratchett
BOiPod

This is the first in a trilogy of children's books featuring Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, and the Nac Mac Feegle, a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch blue men who are as fierce as they are funny.

Tiffany's quest is to find her younger brother after he has been kidnapped by the queen of the faeries. Armed only with a frying pan and the help of the Nac Mac Feegles, Tiffany sets off on her quest. Along the way she learns important things about herself.

The Wee Free Men is billed as a children's book - 6th grade- but it is a tale that can be enjoyed by adults as well. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to listening to the next two in the series: A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith. Stephen Briggs narrates the books and I am in awe of his fabulous Scottish brogue. He can roll his r's like none other.

The Eyre Affair

BOiPod
by Jasper Fforde

I read this book in Feb 2006 and enjoyed it immensely. That review is HERE. My daughter recently listened to it on CD and loved it, but expressed surprise that I would like a book that had quite a bit of swearing. I really didn't notice the swearing while reading it, but this time through I noticed it alot. I think I skim over it while reading and I can't do that while listening. Anyway I still liked it a lot. I got so much more out of it by reading and was able to focus more on the characters and storyline.

"Imagine this. Great Britain in 1985 is close to being a police state. The Crimean War has dragged on for more than 130 years and Wales is self-governing. The only recognizable thing about this England is her citizens' enduring love of literature. And the Third Most Wanted criminal, Acheron Hades, is stealing characters from England's cherished literary heritage and holding them for ransom.

Bibliophiles will be enchanted, but not surprised, to learn that stealing a character from a book only changes that one book, but Hades has escalated his thievery. He has begun attacking the original manuscripts, thus changing all copies in print and enraging the reading public. That's why Special Operations Network has a Literary Division, and it is why one of its operatives, Thursday Next, is on the case.

Thursday is utterly delightful. She is vulnerable, smart, and, above all, literate. She has been trying to trace Hades ever since he stole Mr. Quaverley from the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and killed him. You will only remember Mr. Quaverley if you read Martin Chuzzlewit prior to 1985. But now Hades has set his sights on one of the plums of literature, Jane Eyre, and he must be stopped.

How Thursday achieves this and manages to preserve one of the great books of the Western canon makes for delightfully hilarious reading. You do not have to be an English major to be pulled into this story. You'll be rooting for Thursday, Jane, Mr. Rochester--and a familiar ending." Otto Penzler, amazon.com reviewer