On the Bookshelf

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Posted by Terra at 9:25 PM | Labels: Harry Potter, JK Rowling, Pottermore | 1 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Title: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove
Author: Lauren Kate
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: Novemeber 12th, 2009
Source: Library

Somehow I felt that The Tragedy of Natalie Hargrove may have been a better title for this book. Natalie's story struck me more of a case of tragic circumstances than one of direct betrayal. Natalie would do anything to become Palmetto Princess but a prank gone wrong results in the death of her boyfriend's competition for the place of Palmetto Prince and everything threatens to unravel - her role as an accidental murderer and the past she tried so hard to cover up. Natalie is cruel and manipulative in her need to cover up her secret past of being from the "wrong side of the tracks" from not only her peers but from herself.

Posted by Terra at 3:12 PM | Labels: Fiction, Lauren Kate, Reviews, The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove | 2 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

I love these bookshelves from Brooke. Be sure to check out her book blog Brooke Reviews too.

Posted by Terra at 7:22 AM | Labels: Bookcase Love, Features | 7 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

This week Donna of My Life. One Story On Story At A Time has brought us three delicious bookcases to love. 100 chocolate cookbooks delicious! Oh my goodness. Now that is a book collection I wouldn't mind browsing through.

Posted by Terra at 5:09 PM | Labels: Bookcase Love, Features | 4 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

If anyone else is suffering from what Blogger is calling "The Spinning Issue" (post editor not loading, just the little spinning loading symbol going forever) switching to the old editor appears to be working for me.

Anyway, on with the good stuff!

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

I'm pretty sure that this one speaks for itself...

A special delivery all the way from the USA!

Posted by Terra at 9:53 PM | Labels: What's on the Bookshelf | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Release Date: 1973
Source: Bought

I may be one of the only people in the world who had grew up without seeing the film The Princess Bride. I finally saw it January this year - at the ripe old age of twenty-two - after being completely blown away by this book. My childhood was also void of Labyrinth which I finally saw and fell in love with in my late teens, and Dark Crystal which I am still yet to watch. I can only guess that my parents wanted to avoid a repeat of my obsession with The Neverending Story films which we constantly had rented out from the video shop when I was a child. The point is that I was able to pick up the book The Princess Bride with absolutely no idea what I was in for.

Posted by Terra at 7:21 PM | Labels: Fiction, Reviews, The Princess Bride, William Goldman | 3 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Posted by Terra at 10:09 PM | Labels: Bookcase Love, Features | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"I know delusions of grandeur are not unusual in high school, but usually they're limited to quarterbacks with God complexes - not the faculty. But after our last principal was hauled away on house arrest, Palmetto was blessed with the kind of temporary fill-in whose big dreams of sitting on the Supreme Court was smashed after, oh, the fifth time he failed the South Carolina bar exam."

From page 101 of The Betrayal of Natalie Hargove by Lauren Kate.

Posted by Terra at 2:04 PM | Labels: Memes, Teaser Tuesdays | 16 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

I'm back. Hopefully for good this time. You'll notice that I am in the middle of updating the site so please forgive any broken links and odd images. Hopefully everything will be smoothed out shortly.

One exciting new development since my last post is that I bought new furniture for my bedroom.

Posted by Terra at 10:18 PM | Labels: Bookcase Love, Features | 6 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

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Title: Alanna: The First Adventure
Series: The Song of the Lioness Quartet
Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Atheneum
Release Date: September, 1983
Source: Library

From the Back Cover:

Disguised as a boy, Alanna sets out to achieve her ultimate ambition: to become a knight. The struggle to prove she is as strong as the other young men demands all her determination but the need to cover her growing femininity is an entirely different challenge. And while the court magician may be her most dangerous enemy, the possibility of love may be her undoing...

My Thoughts:
 This one is a reread for me as part of a recent desire to revisit some childhood favourites. I think I first stumbled upon this gem around the age of ten or eleven. It was my first Tamora Pierce book and ever since this series has remained my favourite of hers.

As a ten year old I loved Alanna and her commitment to reaching her goals and the easy to read nature of the books. As a twenty-one year old I still enjoy Pierce's writing style, world building, and characters but wish that the books were longer.

Oh, sure, maybe I do now look at The Song of the Lioness Quartet with "rose coloured glasses" so to speak. Reading this first book in the series again was most certainly a nostalgic experience and I found myself thinking "I remember this bit!" and "oh, this scene used to be my favourite!" quite often. I believe that, more than anything, it goes to show how enjoyable a read it is for the target age group and that I do consider it to be one of the influential and memorable books that I was discovering at that time. I feel that many of the books, including this series, that I enjoyed at that age had great influence on the development of my taste in fiction right up to this day.

If you have never read any Tamora Pierce then start here! If you are looking for a good fantasy series for a preteen then start here! Yes, it has its flaws including clichés and definitely a need for more detail but I consider this to be one of my treasured childhood favourites and I just have to share it. I'm not entirely sure if this is really a review or really just biased raving in disguise.

Also Check Out:

Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Terra

Posted by Terra at 10:45 PM | Labels: Alanna: The First Adventure, Fiction, Reviews, Song of the Lioness Quartet, Tamora Pierce | 1 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Please be merciful.

Today I started my new full-time job, which I think started off well. I'll be spending the next six (6) months working in an university library so it's all very different, new, exciting, and occasionally confusing and exhausting. When I got home today I promptly collapsed in a heap on the couch and immersed myself in Battle for Middle-earth II for several hours.

As a result I have not written a word for NaNoWriMo and I have for you no witty post or insightful review planned for NaBloPoMo. November is always my favourite month for creativity but it just isn't going to happen today. In fact...

Dear November,

Would you mind maybe going away and coming back later?

Kindest, yet somewhat frazzled, regards,

Terra

Posted by Terra at 10:32 PM | Labels: NaBloPoMo, Nanowrimo | 6 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"I'm king here - more king than the man who sits atop the big hill. My people wouldn't give him a word in passing, but they follow my slightest wish."

From page 61 of Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce.

I've been revisiting some of my childhood favourites recently. I think I must have been maybe ten years old when I first read this book.

Terra

Posted by Terra at 7:15 AM | Labels: Memes, Teaser Tuesdays | 11 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

1. What are you reading right now?

Food for Life: Lifelong health from the food you eat by Michael Van Straten.

2. How many books have you read so far?

This is my first.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?

Probably Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as I haven't read it for a couple of years now. Mind, I was just thinking that maybe I should add John Dies at the End to my reading list.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?

Nope. It's a glorious work-free Sunday here.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?

Sleep, which I learned last Read-A-Thon is important.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

That I have run out of pocky. Also, this post not formatting itself the way I tell it to. :(

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

More pocky. Oh, wait. You mean suggestions for the event planners? None. It's great as always.

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?

Maybe go to be sooner so that I'd get up earlier to start reading.

9. Are you getting tired yet?

Nope. I'm am now awake and refreshed.

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?

Sleep is important. So is pocky.

Terra

Posted by Terra at 10:25 AM | Labels: 24 Hour Read-A-Thon, Challenges, Memes | 7 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Read-a-thon! Wait for meeeeee!

Better late than never I an scrambling to get a start on Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon.

I live in Australia so the starting time was late here and I was already so tired so I figured that it was better to get some sleep. So, here I am, now awake and refreshed and ready to get some ready done.

In these last twelve hours of the Read-a-thon I will be trying to get through...

• Food for Life by Michael Van Straten
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
• Hell Island by Matthew Reilly

If I actually manage to get through those then I will continue on with The Passage by Justin Cronin.

Terra

Posted by Terra at 10:03 AM | Labels: 24 Hour Read-A-Thon, Challenges | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |

Title: Feed
Series: Newsflesh
Author: Mira Grant
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: May 1, 2010
Source: Library

From the Back Cover:

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

My Thoughts:

Four words: New. Favourite. Zombie. Book.

Feed explores the impact of a zombie rising far beyond the initial fear and chaos, looking at the long term influence on media, politics, security, and medicine. Mira Grant (pseudonym for Seanan McGuire) shows us the world in 2040 - a whole 26 years after the Rising. The panic has passed and the walking dead wanting to take a bite out of you is just another fact of life. The Rising catapulted bloggers into the spotlight as the only reliable news resource during a time when conventional news providers where under the thumb of censorship.

I fell in love with the cast of characters that Grant put on the page. Georgia and Shaun Mason are siblings by adoption who are closer than most brothers and sisters. They run the news blogging site, After the End Times, along with their friend Georgette "Buffy" Meissonier, winning themselves the career making opportunity of a lifetime - exclusive access to Senator Ryman's presidential campaign. Georgia is the "Newsie" with a passion for truth. Shaun as their "Irwin" brings in the ratings by pulling risky stunts like poking zombies with sticks. As the "Fictional" Buffy writes stories and poems to entertain the masses. Together they create a dynamic team and I enjoyed Georgia's unique voice as the narrator.

Feed has the perfect balance of political conspiracy and zombies along with plenty of tension, action. humour, and tears that kept me up into all hours of the night unable to set it down. I eagerly await the next book in the series, Deadline.

Also Check Out:

The Zombie Hunters by Jenny Romanchuck
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Terra

Posted by Terra at 12:19 PM | Labels: Feed, Fiction, Mira Grant, Newsflesh, Reviews, Seanan McGuire | 3 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook | |