The Royal Blog

Waiting......

• Dragon Heir

This title will be released on September 1, 2009 wait. that's the paperback version. do i wait or order the hardcover?

• The Last Olympian

In Stock  wait. what? in stock? it's out already? do i wait for paperback or order now??     

• Book Five of the Song of Ice and Fire series

HA!

• Superior Saturday

In Stock  wait. what? in stock? it's out already? do i wait for paperback or order now??     

• Harry Potter and The HalfBlood Prince

15 July 2009

 

Reading Round-up

 

B got The Calder Game as a fluff book for a flight.  Neither one of us thought it was all that.  Her writing style was too choppy or something for me to enjoy.  Even worse, a lot of scenes that should have gone off in a really cool direction? went absolutely nowhere.  I don't think the average kid would get into this book.

The sequel to The City of Ember.  I liked it a lot, and especially the overall lesson from the book.

The Prophet of Yonwood, the prequel to The City of Ember and The People of Sparks.  Not a bad little book, but not what I was expecting.  It felt disconnected and unrelated to Ember, and the explanation at the end seemed tacked on.

Happiness is......

So I lied

I haven't got around to ordering the first Terry Pratchett book so I just grabbed one off my shelf.   FaustEric.  How can you not like a book where the latest King of Hell has changed the physical torture (which souls can't feel anyway) to mental torture (an eternity spent: in a boring hotel room with only one TV channel, watching someone show you their vacation slides, and instead of pushing a boulder up a hill, listening to a demon read from a book of regulations about pushing boulders up a hill)?  Fabulous stuff.

Funny you should ask, Grandma B.

I just yesterday decided I needed to start at the beginning and read the Discworld series in order of publication (Wikipedia alternatively suggests reading by story arc).

1. The Colour of Magic
2. The Light Fantastic
3. Equal Rites
4. Mort
5. Sourcery
6. Wyrd Sisters
7. Pyramids
8. Guards! Guards!
9. Eric
10. Moving Pictures
11. Reaper Man
12. Witches Abroad
13. Small Gods
14. Lords and Ladies
15. Men at Arms
16. Soul Music
17. Interesting Times
18. Maskerade
19. Feet of Clay
20. Hogfather
21. Jingo
22. The Last Continent
23. Carpe Jugulum
24. The Fifth Elephant
25. The Truth
26. Thief of Time
27. The Last Hero
28. The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
29. Night Watch
30. The Wee Free Men
31. Monstrous Regiment
32. A Hat Full of Sky
33. Going Postal
34. Thud!
35. Wintersmith
36. Making Money

Not yet published:

• I Shall Wear Midnight
• Raising Taxes

So now I need to figure out what I have, what I need to order, and when I do order, how not to accidentally order three copies of the same book......

May you live in interesting times.

Finished Interesting Times and Mort this weekend.   Absolutely loved them!  Not much of a book reviewer - either I like it or I don't and it's difficult to articulate why.  I will say that I just totally dig Mr. Pratchett's sense of humor.

This & That

(this is my second time typing this post. stupid internet explorer.)

Irresistible Apple™  by Bath & Body Works does NOT smell like "Voluptuous sun-kissed red apples with whispers of blond wood and soft musk. Enticing. Bold. Undeniably sexy." What it DOES smell like is strawberries, wax, and Vicks Formula 44D.  In other words, very very resistible.

The toddler thinks Burger King's chicken tenders are "dewishous" except when they're "berry hot!".   So I took a bite out of one.  SPLUH!  How Z & E2 can prefer them to Wendy's chicken nuggets is beyond me.

Z very sincerely thanked me for cleaning his room yesterday.  Score one for Mommy!   And, the sweatshirt I forced him to take to soccer (they lost 3-0) did a good job of keeping him warm when it was windy.  Score two for Mommy!  But when it wasn't windy the sweatshirt didn't help with the cold.  At. all.  Well, score one & a half for Mommy.

E1 is rocking her gymnastics practices and should have a good showing at State, the last meet of the season. 

We are probably going to have to go in and talk to the principal this week or next.  There seems to be a pervasive, disregarded bullying problem at the school and Mama Bear is not happy. 

I am on book two of The Darkest Age series, The Book of the Sword. [Unfortunately, while I was looking for a link to post, I read a blurb about book three that gave away the ending to book two.  Grrr.  AND, that's when internet explorer freaked out and shut down.  Double Grrr.]  Anyway, it's an okay series.  Very formulaic.  Magic? check.  Monster? check.  Quest? check.

The Underland Chronicles

I'm on book 5 of The Underland Chronicles, The Code of the Claw.  The series is definitely geared toward young adults (I think the big kids would really like it).  Probably not a set that I'll ever feel compelled to re-read.  Still, very imaginative and interesting.

Good things come in threes

The Wizard Heir was pretty good and I definitely liked it better than The Warrior Heir.

Currently reading book three of The Bartimaeus Trilogy - love this series!  Very imaginative and humorous.

Jasper Fforde's next book (Shades of Gray, 3-part saga) will not be published until July 2009 and he will be  "'making up all his own characters" and "not appropriating them from popular fiction."  Another Thursday Next novel (and is tentatively titled: "One of Our Thursdays is missing".) is due 2010.  So hopefully the untitled book due out in 2011 is a Nursery Crime book??

I *heart* Terry Pratchett.

Just finished Jingo today - loved it!

Wee Free Men

Just finished Wee Free Men last night - loved it!  Looks like I'll have to buy the rest of the Discworld books.

Good Omens: A very, very, good book.

Hysterical.

Back to the square BEHIND square one.

Heavens to Murgatroid.  E2 was so bad at gymnastics (running away half the time; making herself limp the rest of the time) that we left 15 minutes early.

I read Stardust this weekend and thought it was pretty good.  Usually I complain about books being too long and needing more edited out.  This one I actually think could have been fleshed out and longer. Anyhoo, after I finished, I was psyched to go see the movie and went to find out who is starring in it.  I read down the list of characters.  Captain Shakespeare? Pirates? Yvaine's sister?  I think I'll pass.

Reading Log

I just started A Game of Thrones, Book 1 from A Song of Fire & Ice. (and it looks like I got the last copy amazon sells; it's now only available from other sellers)

It is pretty good so far but a little confusing.  I told B I thought I was going to have to make a chart just to keep all the characters straight. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows . . .

was fabulous.  That is all.

Now what?

I finished The Dark is Rising Sequence (excellent.), and the Gordon Korman sets of Dive, Island and Kidnapped (very good.)  Now what?

Reading List

Finished The Chronicles of Prydain series.  Pretty good, but the Tolkien influence was rather obvious.

Now I've begun the first book of  The Dark is Rising Sequence .   Good timing because I just now (Just now. We're at now, now. ) discovered that the second book in the series is being made into a movie .