I’ve been wanting to read this for a while, ever since it was in the New Books section at Bongs & Noodles and I almost but didn’t quite buy it. It’s all about an Australian girl whose mother dies, and she comes to work in a bookshop in New York that is a very good and famous bookshop and contains many strange people who are albinos and trannies and emotionally unavailable snobs. They are a motley crew. I had high hopes. All dashed, unfortunately. It’s not the worst book ever, but I could hardly be bothered finishing it. I only…
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Recommended by: GeraniumCat’s great big list of children’s books you should have read as a kid Nothing as appealing as people mentioning things that you might have missed but they hope you haven’t. Unfortunately most of the books on the list weren’t at the library on account of, I assume, being wildly out of print and based in the United Kingdom, but I got Carrie’s War. It’s about two little Blitz evacuee kids (I love books about evacuee kids) who get evacuated to Wales and live with a family and the older girl, Carrie, does a terrible thing. I like…
Leave a CommentRecommended by: Read-Warbler This book is about an American librarian who brings books to rural African places using camels. I’ll give you that again: She uses CAMELS to bring people BOOKS. There are no words that adequately express how sad I am that I wasn’t able to finish this book. It contains BOOKS and CAMELS. Bringing books to people via camels. I love books (obviously), and God knows I love camels more than my luggage. One time I went to a RenFest, and THEY HAD CAMELS there and I RODE ON ONE. Didn’t even remotely know that I cared about…
Leave a CommentMy second try with Linda Newbery. I really want to love her! The covers of her book are always so appealing! This one had bits that were set in Chelmsford, and I lived in Essex for nine months! But still, the only strong reaction I had to her books – like last time – was, Jesus God, I’m so glad I’m not raising children in England. British schoolchildren are awful. They are awful. My flatmates thought I was from the scary ghetto because I have sketchy neighbors and got mugged one time; this in spite of the fact that they…
Leave a CommentThe Temeraire series continues, hooray! I liked this one much more than I did the last two. It was more pulled together than they’ve been, and Laurence was very, very polite, and Temeraire is still a cutie. I’ve been having ongoing concerns that Laurence will get less polite the more he hangs out with the Aerial Corps people (and Jane, who bores me). He didn’t though. He might have been the most polite in this book that he’s been in any of the books. Ah, courtesy. They flew to Africa, and I felt, of all the places they’ve been, Ms.…
1 CommentThe dragons (and Napoleon!) are back. Temeraire is still angling for dragon liberty. Laurence is still sorting through his feelings about England and dragons, and still losing his temper when people have bad manners (yay for manners!). In this book they’re all over the place – it’s all trekking off to Istanbul (and, okay, it’s not Naomi Novik’s fault that this plot thread got that They Might Be Giants song stuck in my head, but damn, I had that song stuck in my head for a while, where it waged a bitter war against the Dr. Horrible songs), and then…
3 CommentsSays Box of Books. (Though I think I’m only very occasionally funny.) But I still like filling up questiony things. Oo, except for when you have to bubble in bubbles like on standardized tests. Once I knew what the pattern of my name was – up-spike at the E, drastic down-spike for the Y – which was around first grade – it got boring. What kind of a book are you comfortable reading? To be honest, the ones I’ve read before. And every now and again, I come across a new book that feels comfortable, but there doesn’t seem to…
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