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This is the sequel to The Green Rider which I really enjoyed and wanted to read the sequel as soon as I discovered it and luckily was able to request this copy through bookmooch .

The story again follows Karigan G’ladheon, two years after the first book. The foundation of the story is the dark magic seeping into Sacoridia through the cracks in the D’yer Wall causing strange things to happen to everyone in the kingdom, including the Riders. Unlike the first book there is not the same sense of crisis and resolution, instead I think this book is building up to the third book in the series The High King’s Tomb. However that doesn’t mean this book wasn’t equally exciting and interesting; we discover a lot more about the main characters, giving them more depth, as well as the Green Riders through the appearance of the first Rider Lil Ambrioth.

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Although I found this book interesting this was despite the writing style. The book for some reason is split into four sections; Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen, but the section titles are only vaguely connected to the content. The first section, Lolita describes the reading group Nafisi established after she stopped teaching at university and I found it very difficult to read, in fact so difficult I almost gave up on the book. However the next three sections are easier because they are mostly chronological from the start of the revolution. It is these sections that I found the most interesting because it describes how the lives of people, especially women, changed from the revolution to the current times.

To be honest I think I would have preferred this book if it hadn’t included the reference to literature, which at times felt forced and at times like an English literature lecture. However, it has opened my eyes to the possibility of reading Nabokov, maybe not Lolita (although I am now less prejudiced against that book than previously) but particularly An invitation to a beheading which sounds like an intriguing book.

February 2006

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The book is set in a London where magic is commonplace; in fact the whole Government is comprised of magicians.  Nathaniel is a young apprentice to one of these ministers, Arthur Underwood.  Due to an incident a year previously Nathaniel wants to seek revenge on another powerful magician, Simon Lovelace.  Nathaniel summons the djinni Bartimaeus and bids him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace’s house.  Unfortunately this is a powerful Amulet which Lovelace will do anything to find and is the start of Nathaniel’s problems.
The theme that runs through the book is power; an individual magician’s power and what he’ll do to get it and the power the magician’s have over the ‘common’ people.  I am sure this second theme will be continued in the sequel as there was several questions left unanswered.

I have to admit that I found this difficult to get into at first, which I found surprising as it’s a children’s fantasy book, which I tend to enjoy.  It was probably to because the point of view changes (it is either Bartimaeus in the first person or Nathaniel in the third person) and that in the beginning events were written linearly; however about 100 pages in I was hooked.

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Amazon recommended this book to me after I read and enjoyed Abhorsen. I bought a copy from a local Oxfam bookshop, but forgot about it and bought a second copy on my honeymoon in Vancouver! As I didn’t need both copies I left the first copy in a cinema and finally found the time to read the second copy.

The books starts with the escape of one portion of the Architect’s Will from its prison on a distant dead star. Consequently, Mister Monday needs to find a loophole quickly, so it appears he followed the Will; before it finds him. The plan fails and Arthur Penhaligon, a sick eleven year old boy, takes ownership of the key enabling him to access the House. The House is an usual realm around which the rest of the universe was built by the Architect and Mister Monday, and the other Morrow Days have been abusing their powers. Arthur must travel into the House to find a cure for the mysterious sleeping plague affecting his home town and at the same time he discovers the significance of the key as well as himself.

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Amazon recommended this book to me after reading Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs. At the start of this year I was enjoying reading fantasy books so I requested this book through BookMooch.com. It has sat on my shelf since, and unusually, my husband read this book before me.

The story is based in Sacoridia, a kingdom that has enjoyed centuries of peace due to the D’Yer Wall that was built after the Long War and protects the kingdom from Kanmorhan Vane (or Blackveil Forest). However something is stirring in the forest, partly inspired by the new young king on the throne. The main character, Karigan G’ladheon, runs away from school after being suspended for defeating the son of a lord during a playground sword fight. However, on the way home she meets an official messenger of the King, a Green Rider, who has been shot by two black arrows and asks her to take his letter to the king. Karigan accepts the mission and starts her eventful journey to the capital and the king.

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This book came highly recommended by several people, but I’ve had this book so long that I can’t remember where I got it from, however I can tell it is definitely second hand because it looks like it has been dropped in the bath!

The book follows Lily a fourteen year old girl living in South Caroline with her father. Lily does not receive much affection from her father and believes she was responsible for her mother’s death ten years earlier. After an argument with her father Lily runs away along with her black servant, Rosaleen, after a racial beating of Rosaleen in the local town. Lily’s only plan is to go to the town written on the back of a picture she found in the attic. Their path takes them to the home of three beekeeping women where they take sanctuary and start developing a new (if temporary) life as they wait for the law and Lily’s father to find them.

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Amazon recommended this book to me as I had read and enjoyed other books from Oprah’s Book Club; I didn’t know anything else about the book, but had the opportunity to pick up a free copy through Bookcrossing.com. I’ve had the book for two years now and feel it is time it moved on.

The book follows the lives of several generations of the same black family in Louisiana, USA starting in 1834 through to 1936. The story follows three women who have very different lives starting as slaves, during the civil war and as slavery becomes illegal. Although it is a fiction book it is based on Lalita Tademy’s research into her family history so the majority of the characters are factual as are the key components of the story backed up with copies of documents such as newspaper cuttings and wills (which again makes me think about what records are we leaving in the digital age).

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The two main characters are Rory and Maggie. Rory is the youngest son of the Earl and Countess of Bevan who is trying to help his parents keep their house. Maggie is an American journalist sent to Britain to research a documentary on the decline and fall of the upper classes.

The book is written in alternating first person. This is a style I don’t like, but it works here better than in most books as the story still flowed and didn’t feel too disjointed. However I still think it is odd to select one of the first person views to be from a dead character.

It is a pleasant book, which I managed to easily finish in two days. Although it is described as a romantic comedy I only found a few incidences of true comedy, most of seem to be based on fact or urban myths about the upper class. From the description of the book I was hoping for a stronger story and can’t help but feel disappointed.

July 2005

Bookcrossing journal – wild released

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The story is based in the art world of Europe. The most popular art is hyperdramatism, where people are the canvas. The canvases are painted daily and hold their positions, without moving, every day for 10 hours in museums or private collections. There is large demand to be canvases especially for the masters such as Bruno van Tysch and people go on training courses, take drugs to stop bodily functions and practise holding positions for the honour to become a masterpiece worth millions of dollars.

However there is a dark side to the hyperdramatic movement, with the illegal creation of ornaments where canvases are turned into everyday objects e.g. lamps, chairs, the kidnapping of children to be used as canvases and in this book the murder of some of Bruno van Tysch’s finest pieces.

Although this is a murder mystery book I didn’t think of it in that way. I was so absorbed in how well the hyperdramatic movement was explained and developed through the book (I could actually believe it really existed) that I very rarely thought about who the murder could be. The debate on morality throughout the book was also fascinating; is hyperdramatism cruel even though people want to be canvases, and were the victims murdered people or destroyed pieces of art.