Books I Haven't Read

I have seen a couple posts lately about books that everyone else seems to have read, but the bloggers haven't got around to yet (or don't plan to).

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett - I tried to read this earlier this year, but I couldn't get into it. The beginning was a bit too slow for me at the time. Everyone seems to love it, though, and it does seem like something I would enjoy!

2. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - I am not entirely sure if this is my type of book, but I do own it. I probably will read it eventually.

3. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - I have read the first couple books, but I was not a big fan and probably won't read the rest of the series.

4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Somehow I missed this book in school. I don't know if I will ever read it.

5. Jane Austen Books - I have only read Pride & Prejudice. I own a nice set of all the books, but I don't know if I will ever read them.

6. Eat. Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - Everyone seems to have read this book, but I haven't bothered to read it yet.

7. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - I had intended to read this a couple months ago, but it didn't happen. One day.

8. The Passage by Justin Cronin - This is around everywhere lately, but I haven't been tempted to read it yet.

9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - I own this and have meant to read it like ten times, but still haven't got around to it yet!

10. The Tempest by William Shakespeare - There are a few Shakespeare plays I haven't read, but this one has been in a few of my other reads lately, so it is on my mind.

There are a lot more, but I can't think of them at the moment!

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King (Mary Russell Series, Book 1)

In 1915, long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he think to meet an intellect to match his own–until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a very modern fifteen-year-old whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and penchant for trousers and cloth caps.

Under Holmes’s tutelage, Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger: in the chilling case of a landowner’s mysterious fever and in a kidnapping in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. Soon the two sleuths are on the trail of a murderer whose machinations scatter meaningless clues…but whose objective is quite unequivocal: to end Russell and Holmes’s partnership–and their lives.

Today is a buddy review with Melissa from Book Nut. She asked me some questions, which I answered below, and then I asked her some questions which you can read the answers to on her blog.

You picked the book for the buddy read this time. How did you find out about this one, and what appealed to you about it?

I have seen this series mentioned on many blogs, but where it is a mystery I wasn't entirely sure if it was for me. I don't generally read a lot of mystery series. Lately, though, I have been reading a bit differently and have found a couple history mystery series that work well for me. This is another attempt in this new bookish-area. I wanted to try it because it is historical, but also because I was intrigued by a female perspective on Sherlock Holmes.

So, are you a Sherlock Holmes fan? If so: what did you think of this story, and the way it treated Holmes? If not, did it inspire you to go read some of Conan Doyle's stories?

I have always loved Sherlock Holmes, so this series appealed to me when it first came out. I just wasn't sure if it could be pulled off or if I wanted to give it a try. I don't mind a couple mystery series, but generally I don't read them. It's taken me a couple years to get around to giving the series a try, but I am very glad that I did!

Did you like Mary Russell? What did you think of the juxtaposition between her and Holmes?
I did like Mary. I was really worried in the beginning, but King does a really good job of writing a character that is believable in their interaction with Holmes. I enjoyed their relationship, but admit I am rather curious how she is going to have it all play out as the series progresses. There were a couple times when I wasn't entirely sure what the author was thinking, but she managed to redeem herself and writing an engaging character.

What did you think of the plot -- did it work for you?

I liked the plot. One thing that is very important to me is that there is the mystery, but also that there is a story. I need real characters. I need to know that when they are not solving mysteries they have a life. I don't want to read a novel and have the mystery be the entire focus. There was a nice mix in this book which gives me a lot of hope for the rest of the series.

Without giving away too much: what did you think of the ending?

The ending wasn't my favourite part of the book. That's not to say it was bad, but other parts of the book stuck with me better. I think it was satisfying enough, but nothing amazing.

So, this is a first in the series. Are you interested in reading any of the others?

Yes. I actually do think I will read at least book two. I don't want to commit to the entire series in this answer because you never know what can happen. Liking book one could even be a fluke!

Dr. Seuss

I have been buying my friends' daughter Dr. Seuss books for the last year or so. Her birthday is coming up in July and I want to get her a few, but I am not sure what to get. I thought maybe people could tell me what there favourites are and then I can go from there.

She owns:

Green Eggs and Ham

The Cat and the Hat

Fox in Socks

ABC

Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?

Hop on Pop

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

I Wish That I Had Duck Feet

I missed one: I Can Read With my Eyes Shut

I am going by memory here, so may have forgot something. She also has P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother?

So, what other Dr. Seuss books should I consider?

*** Edited to add: I ordered this REALLY nice 13-in-1 version of Dr. Seuss. I had considered it before, but pretty much every book suggested on here is in the collection. There are three repeats, but she will get ten new ones:

And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street

Horton Hears a Who! (I am surprised no one suggested this one.)

McElligot's Pool ( I have no idea what this is)

If I Ran the Zoo

Happy Birthday to You! (Fitting because it is her birthday)

Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (I might buy this one for her again as a separate book for her birthday)

The Lorax (Lots of people will be happy!)

The Sneetches

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (Wasn't going to buy this one because her mother wanted to get her it when she graduated from school way in the future, but can't help it!)

Feel free to continue to chime in on your favourites, though. There are other occasions that are worth buying books for!

Library Haul - Near the end of June, 2010

I haven't done a library loot post in a while, but things had been a bit slow for a while there. In the last few weeks I brought back pretty much everything I had checked out and now I am slowly building the pile back up again. It is what happens when you read blogs and ask people for book recommendations!

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees - Book Recommendation

Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World by Birute Regine - Read about on a blog, maybe?

Sima's Undergarments for Women by Ilana Stranger-Ross - Buddy Read

The Silver Door by Holly Lisle - Re-loot. Really liked book 1.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - New book by a great author.

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain - Blog review?

Bone - Volume 7 by Jeff Smith - Next book in the series.

A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey - Blog review

The Gift of Rain by Twan Eng Tan - Blog review

The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang - Blog review

The Day I Became an Autodidact and the Advice, Adventures, and Acrimonies that Befell me Thereafter by Kendall Hailey - Blog review

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh - Blog review

The Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins - Blog review

Yummy: Eight Favourite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins - List of books that my library recommends

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien - Buddy read.

Rough Magic by Caryl Cude Mullin

Out in the midst of the ocean, rising out of the rough seas, lies a mysterious island.

It has seen visitors over the years, and has learned to fear them. Humans have done nothing but take, stealing the island’s magic and enslaving its spirits.

Caliban, born to a great sorceress who was marooned on the island’s shores, grew up half-wild with its creatures. Having escaped the island to live amongst kingdoms and courtiers for many years, he now finds himself returning with his young charge Chiara, a girl who has a power within her that no one suspected. Once back on the island they are joined by Calypso, a magical young woman with ties to them all.

Inspired by The Tempest, Shakespeare’s famous play of love, loyalty, and magic, it is the island and its power that draws them all back. But this time the dragon who lives at the bottom of the sea has been awakened and must be satisfied. It will be up to the humans to strike a balance between their power and the natural world.

I like to think of myself as a supporter of both Canadian authors and of women authors. So when Second Story Press approached me about reading a couple books from their catalog; I was ecstatic! The very first paragraph on their home page states:

Second Story Press was co-founded in 1988 by Margie Wolfe and three other women dedicated to publishing feminist-inspired books for adults and young readers. We are proud to have been publishing award-winning books that entertain, educate, and empower for over 20 years.

I have never heard of them before! Let me just tell you the best way to explain my feelings, though. I was allowed to pick from their catalog. They did not approach me with a specific title in mind. I had no idea what to pick! There are so many excellent sounding books that I could pretty much read anything and be quite happy. Thankfully one of the friendly staff members was happy enough to pick my books for me! Rough Magic is the first book I read. It makes me very happy when I am approached to review books, but it is even better when the person offering has actually read my blog and is offering me something I would be even slightly interested in. So, to summarize, I am quite taken with Second Story Press at the moment. (For those of you participating in the Women Unbound challenge, there are many books offered by this publishing company that would work quite well!) I feel terrible that I am only know discovering that they exist! My library has loads of their books, though, so at least they were paying attention!

Moving on to the actual book, Rough Magic is a Shakespearean-retelling. It is based around The Tempest, which I have to admit I haven't actual read. This means that I have no idea how this compares to original, so not entirely sure how fans of the play would respond to this book. I did read a Manga Shakespeare version of the story, but those were so bad I have entirely forgotten what happened. One review I saw of this book compares it to Mists of Avalon. I was a little worried because I consider that book to be one of my favourite books of all time, so if you are going to compare a book to it in any capacity it better be a really good book! I can see how it has the same idea behind it after finishing it. It is the story from a female point-of-view instead of the male perspective. There is a male that tells the story from time to time, though.

I feel like I am rambling and have entirely lost structure in this review, so to be a bit more focused, I really liked this book. It was dark and atmospheric. The characters were engaging and troubled. The settings came entirely to mind and the characters developed quite well. There were a few times where things didn't entirely work for me, but it was nothing major. I enjoyed that the characters were flawed and not perfect, but that might be how things were in original play to begin with. This is a book that is very easy to read in one sitting and enjoy yourself doing it. I am glad that I got a chance to give it a try and look forward to more from both this author and from Second Story Press in general.

I apologize for the disorganization of thoughts! I hope that you got something out of my rambles!

The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy (Skulduggery Series, Book 3)

Valkyrie screamed, sprinting toward Skulduggery.

He looked up and reached out to her, but it was too late. . . .

If you've read the other Skulduggery Pleasant books by Derek Landy (and you really should have read them by now), you've seen it all before: Some bad guy wants to bring about the end of the world, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie fight valiantly to stop it from happening. A few people get hurt, sure, but everything's all right in the end.

Well, not this time.

The third book in the Skulduggery series by Derek Landy. It actually came out last year, but I get wrapped up in library due dates and get slack at reading my own books. I really like this series. It's a lot of fun! Skulduggery is currently one of my favourite characters in fiction at the moment. You take a walking, talking skeleton and make him a detective and you apparently have a hit on your hands. It helps that Skulduggery's personality is interesting at times.

The books do tend to be a bit predicable, but not in a bad way. While you know that something bad is going to happen and that Skulduggery and Valkyrie will be mixed up in it, you don't always know exactly what surprises that Landy has waiting for you. It is also nice that there are stories started back in the very first book that are still being told in the newest. I hate when an author starts something and then seems to forget all about it, because I remember and I want to know what happens.

Something different about this book was that the ending was a bit of a cliffhanger. Normally everything is mostly wrapped up by the end of the book, but in this one you really are going to want to have book four handy so you can find out what happens! I have to admit that Valkyrie can annoy me at times. She's only a kid, when you think about it, and it comes across sometimes in ways that bother me. I think it would be worse if the story didn't move to other people once in a while. If it was just her I would probably not like this series at all! As it is, I really only love it because I really like Skulduggery. The books are original, too. They might be a bit predictable at times, but they still present original ideas and have original characters. That is something that is hard to do in fantasy nowadays.

Overall, this was another fun book in the series. I would say more, but I don't want to spoil the previous two books. All I will say is give this series a try!

Thanks to Harper Collins Canada for sending me this book!

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The House at Riverton, a novel that takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through generations and across continents as two women try to uncover their family’s secret past

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-fi rst birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.

I am not entirely sure what led me to add this book to my library holds. I have seen the book around the blogging world since it came out last year, but only just recently decided to give it a try. I have been reading a fair amount lately, but I needed something a bit different. When I asked Swapna from S. Krishna's Books for some recommendations she suggested this book, so I started it right away. Between her blog and random conversations on Twitter I have come to the conclusion that when she really likes a book, there is a really good chance that I am going to like it, too. So far, anyways! This book was no exception. Actually, I think it is safe to say that this book will make it on my best of list at the end of the year.

I was a little worried about this book to begin with. I really didn't know what it was about at all, but knew there was a mystery involved and some connection to fairy tales (which is why it appealed to me). If mystery novels are done in a certain way I really like them, but if they are very formulaic I can do without. This book is also historical fiction, of a sort, so I really liked that connection. I have been reading a lot of good historical fiction novels so far this year. I have to say that reading this book and watching all the pieces come together was really well-done. There were times where I thought I had everything figured out, but then something else would happen and I would question my results.

When a book travels back and forth across several time frames and has several different narrators, it can be really hard to pull off, but I think that Morton did an excellent job. The novel is set in the early 20th century, around 1975-76, and then in 2005. The move through the times is done very well. You feel like you are experiencing each new time and learning new things about all of them. This is a book about a group of women and their connections. It all starts when a little girl shows up in Australia with no adult present. A young man finds her, and since they are having trouble having children of their own, brings her home and makes her part of the family. For 21 years she believes that this is her real family, but then her father decides to tell her the truth and changes her life forever. That admission of truth on her 21st birthday is the real starting point for all the events that follow.

I really enjoyed all the women in this book. The circle they are caught in is really fascinating as it is revealed. There is Eliza, a little girl that has lost both her mother and her brother, but is found by her uncle and taken to live at Blackhurst Manor to escape the workhouse. She lives with her sickly-cousin, Rose, and the two become very close. Then, there is Nell who shows up in Australia in 1913 with no memory of who she is. When she is in her 60's she begins a detailed search into who she is, but events conspire to change things and it is not until 2005 that all the questions are answered. Nell is deceased, but her grand-daughter carries on to find the truth of who her grandmother really was.

There is so much that I want to say about this book, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I think you should just read it yourself to see how great it is! I know that I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading another book by Morton in the future.

Learning from Children's Books - A Fun Way to Spend the First Part of the Summer

Hi everyone,

I am hoping everyone is back from their adventures away and have resumed reading blogs. I read a book in May that gave me a really fun idea, so hopefully there will be some interest. The book was Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Children's Book: Life Lessons from Notable People From all Walks of Life edited by Anita Silvey. As soon as I finished it I thought it would be a fun idea to make a blogger list around the same idea. So, this post is to see if there is any interest.

Everyone has a favourite book from childhood that has stayed with them for their entire life, right? The people in the book Anita Silvey edited credit the books that read for the careers they chose later in life, but there was also just appreciation of a good book. A few of the people even chose books that they learned to appreciate while reading to their own children. They were from all walks of life, and bloggers are really from all walks of life, so I thought it would be an interesting list. It doesn't have to be children's books, either. The definition is open to interpretation, of course. The original book included everything from picture books to books that would be classified as adult, but the reader discovered them as children.

If there was interest in the idea I was thinking it would work like this:

1. You would choose a book and post about it in June and July. Then, in August, I would post a complete list of all the books chosen with links to the posts.

2. The posts would consist of the title of the book, the author, a brief synopsis of the book, a picture of the cover of the book that you had as a child, and then a post about why you chose the book. Length would be entirely up to you.

3. Then, you can either post a link in the comments or email me your link at kellyreads (at) gmail (dot) com.

4. The important thing is to be creative. You can write an essay, tell a story, etc. Whatever you think would work best for you. One of the things I really liked about the book I got this idea from is that there were books I had never even heard of before.

What does everyone think? I think if it has enough interest I would probably need a button, but graphics are not my strong suit. I also need a good title...