If you are about to ask, “Jenny, did you get this book for only two pounds at the Charing Cross Road Borders, along with a number of other kids’ books that were, at 3 for 2, absolutely irresistible?”, then the answer is yes. Yes, I did. And I was really pleased about it, I can tell you. And I also couldn’t resist buying a great big heavy book all about writing Doctor Who, because I am interested in how people write TV shows. I mean how the process works. All very interesting. The Tales of Beedle the Bard is another…
7 CommentsReading the End Posts
I know, I know. I know I said I was done with Jodi Picoult. But I was at my aunt and uncle’s last night, and I had The Charioteer but I am in London, I don’t have loads of books with me, and I didn’t want to use up The Charioteer because I love it so much. So I read The Tenth Circle, which my aunt and uncle had on their bookshelf. The issue: date rape. The court scenes: none – shocking, I know. However, there is a murder. As Jodi Picoult’s books go, this is not one of her…
5 CommentsI have to say, this was the perfect airplane book. I know because I spent eighteen hours traveling to London last week (I know, right? Long flight with several layovers), and Thames was my primary reading material. My grandmother sent it to me for my birthday, and originally I wasn’t going to bring it along on the trip. It’s a big fat hardback with heavy pages and four sets of plates (two color, two black-and-white) – very beautiful, but not practical on a plane trip where luggage has weight considerations. But I couldn’t resist. Thames wasn’t what I expected –…
1 CommentFifteen-year-old Miranda has a pretty normal life, until a meteor hits the moon. It shoves the moon closer to the earth (eek!), which as you might expect does not do good things for the earth. Tsunamis take out New York and Florida and California; volcanoes begin erupting all over the place, filling the air with ash for miles around. And Miranda’s family copes. I first heard about this book shortly after I read Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now, and I didn’t want to do another girl-copes-with-end-of-world-scenario book straight away, because of how grim How I Live Now was. But…
12 CommentsRecommended by Darla D from Books and Other Thoughts – I knew I had to read this when she said “dinosaurs” and “Victorian”, and then she carried right on and said “street urchin” and “vicar’s daughter” and “clock-maker”, which is not totally unlike Ella saying “Warning, it’s very Gothic” about Blackbriar. I am leaving for a fantastic and glorious vacation in London (don’t go anywhere, London, I am coming back to you soon!), so I had collected all my books together to return to the library before I left (I know, right?). And still I could not return them until…
2 CommentsLove this Booking Through Thursday question: What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time? Oh ever so many books. Mainly maybe The Chosen? And The Color Purple, and, oh, The Charioteer, and Watership Down. I can’t choose one. There are dozens of books that were such the most amazing experience ever the first time I read them – Fire and Hemlock was superb. Absolutely definitely The Far Pavilions and I Capture the Castle and Jane Eyre. Yes, Jane Eyre. If I had to choose one. I would choose Jane Eyre, my beautiful Jane…
Leave a CommentOkay, okay, okay. So I read A Cricket in Times Square (of course). And then I read the one about Tucker the Rat. But DID YOU KNOW that the same author also wrote a charming book about a boy whose father dies and he goes to live with his uptight aunt, and she tries to make him get rid of his dog, and he finds a genie called Abdullah? Well – yeah. It’s true! He finds a genie, and the genie falls in love with the maid-of-all-work, Rose, and the dog falls in love with the uptight aunt, and everything…
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