New-to-Me Reading Meme

I've been tagged for a reading meme by my friend Archie out on the Australian desert. I really don't think he had any idea what he was setting me up for! Here are the rules:

1) List the authors that were new to you this year, regardless of year of publication.
2) Boldface those which were debuts (first novel published in 2008).
3) Tag as few or as many others as you’d like.

Now...I've read about 180 books this past year, and I'm always on the search for new authors. I sat up last night going through my book journal and making a list of all the new-to-me authors I'd read in 2008. The final tally was 85. Before I start typing up my gargantuan list, I'm going to get the other two rules of the meme out of the way. I have few 2008 debut novels in the list, so I won't overload the boldface. As for the third rule about tagging people, I choose to tag no one, but if someone reads this post and wants to join in--you're more than welcome! Here goes nothin'....

New-to-Me Authors I Read in 2008:

1. Duane Swierczynski, The Blonde
2. Shane Gericke, Cut to the Bone
3. Rosemary Harris, Pushing Up Daisies
4. Naomi Hirahara, Summer of the Big Bachi
5. Jessica Speart, Gator Aide
6. Joyce Holms, Hot Potato
7. Carolyn Haines, Them Bones
8. Suzanne Arruda, Mark of the Lion*
9. Jo Walton, Farthing
10. Kit Ehrman, At Risk
11. Judith Merkle Riley, A Vision of Light*
12. Scott Westerfeld, Uglies*
13. Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish*
14. Benjamin Black, Christine Falls
15. Kris Nelscott, A Dangerous Road*
16. Kevin Brookmeier, A Brief History of the Dead*
17. Simon Beckett, The Chemistry of Death
18. Rennie Airth, River of Darkness*
19. Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life as we knew it*
20. Shirley Tallman, Murder on Nob Hill
21. Brunonia Barry, The Lace Reader*
22. Deborah Crombie, A Share in Death
    
23. Carrie Young, Nothing to Do but Stay
24. Wendy Roberts, The Remains of the Dead
25. Mark Z. Danielewski, The Whalestoe Letters*
26. Mary Saums, Thistle and Twigg
27. Peter Robinson, Gallow's View
28. Lois Phillips Hudson, The Bones of Plenty*
29. Kate Morton, The House at Riverton
30. David Gerrold, The Man Who Folded Himself
31. Kathy Hogan Trocheck, Every Crooked Nanny
32. Carol Bugge, Who Killed Blanche Du Bois?
33. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time*
34. Lauren Willig, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
35. Carol Goodman, The Ghost Orchid
36. Donna Ball, Smoky Mountain Tracks
37. George D. Shuman, 18 Seconds
38. Curt Colbert, Rat City
39. Sharon Kay Penman, The Queen's Man*
40. Ake Edwardson, Sun and Shadow
41. Susan Goodwill, Brigadoom
42. Kate Furnivall, The Russian Concubine
43. Jean Hegland, Into the Forest*
44. John Harvey, Flesh and Blood*
45. Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift*
46. Richard Guy, The Mysterious Receding Seas
47. Sheila Roberts, On Strike for Christmas
48. William Dietrich, Napoleon's Pyramids
49. Dolores Stewart Riccio, Circle of Five
50. Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
51. David Stinebeck & Scannell Gill, A Civil General
52. Jerry Spinelli, The Library Card
53. Sally Gunning, The Widow's War*
54. Susan Kelly, The Lone Traveller*
55. Diane Wei Liang, The Eye of Jade
56. Kate Collins, Mum's the Word
57. Dale E. Basye, Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go
58. Robert M. Eversz, Shooting Elvis*
59. Will Ferguson, Happiness*
60. Deborah & James Howe, Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery*
61. Clea & John Adams, The Dragonfly Secret
62. Octavia E. Butler, Kindred*
63. Chris Roberts, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown
64. P.D. James, Cover Her Face*
65. Cornelia Read, A Field of Darkness*
66. Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels*
67. Penny Rudolph, Listen to the Mockingbird
68. Ann Purser, Murder on Monday
69. Kathi Appelt & Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer, Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky*
70. Heather Henson, That Book Woman
71. Peter C. Brown, The Fugitive Wife
72. Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo* (US debut 2008)
    
73. Steven Rinella, American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
74. Johan Theorin, Echoes From the Dead*
    
75. Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know*
76. Gene Stratton, Killing Cousins
77. Kate Horsley, Confessions of a Pagan Nun*
78. Ellen Raskin, The Westing Game
79. Clare Walker Leslie, Drawn to Nature
80. Stacey O'Brien, Wesley the Owl*
81. Linwood Barclay, No Time For Goodbye*
82. David Grann, The Lost City of Z* (US debut 2009)
    
83. Christine Goff, A Rant of Ravens
84. Anne Seagraves, Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West*
85. MaryAnn Easley, I Am the Ice Worm

Asterix (*) mean that I really enjoyed that particular book. In fact you'll see a post below this one in which several of these books made my Top Ten Reads lists for the year.

Cathy's Top Ten Reading Lists of 2008

As I said in an earlier post, I had 23 books graded A+ to whittle down until they fit comfortably in two lists of ten each. I love mysteries, so I always make one list just for that genre. The second list of ten is for all genres combined. In the past, making these lists has been rather easy. The stand-outs really stood out. Whittling this year's bumper crop of excellent books was painful, and for the first time I have two authors with two books each.

Without further ado, here are my lists of Top Ten Reads for 2008 (in no particular order):

Cathy's 2008 Top Ten Mysteries:

• The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson
• The Dead Hour by Denise Mina
• Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina
• Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride
• The Stick Game by Peter Bowen
• Cruzatte and Maria by Peter Bowen
• Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie
• No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Echoes From the Dead by Johann Theorin

Cathy's 2008 Top Ten Books (All Genres):

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
• Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
• The Dead Hour by Denise Mina
• The Bones of Plenty by Lois Phillips Hudson
• The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson
• Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Echoes From the Dead by Johann Theorin

If you'd like to see other folks' Top Ten Reads in Crime Fiction, head on over to Kerrie's blog, Mysteries in Paradise.

What are some of the best books you've read in the past year? This inquiring mind is always looking for recommendations!

What Cathy Read in 2008

I read 173 books this year. That's 20 more than I read in 2007. I think Denis's job this summer where he was basically gone every weekend helped with this particular increase. I read quickly, but I don't speed read. Reading is truly an addiction for me, and I have to have my fix every single day. No matter what curve balls life throws at me, I must read. It's amazing how many blocks of time you can carve out of a day for reading if you put your mind to it. As I once told someone: "Fire burns. Dogs bark. Birds fly. I read."

Here are some breakdowns of what I've read in 2008:

• 9 Advanced Reading Copies (something I just started this year)
• 107 Mysteries
• 13 Fiction
• 11 Historical Fiction
• 5 Science Fiction
• 18 Young Adult (another new category for me because of fellow bloggers' reviews)
• 9 Non-Fiction (this is the one category that suffered this year)

How well did I like what I read? Here are the Grade statistics:

• 23...A+
• 41...A
• 23...A-
• 30...B+
• 21...B
• 9....B-
  
• 2....C+
• 11...C
• 2....D
• 1....F
• 10...DNF

Not too many mediocre or poor grades, eh? Since I've started keeping book journals, making notes and grading what I read, I've become much better at choosing books that I like. I still make an occasional error, and that's where that Did Not Finish category comes in. Even that number is lower than previous years.

Now all I need to do is compile my Top Ten reading lists of 2008. Something tells me that post will be showing up rather quickly. The heat pump died, and I'm typing maniacally to generate some warmth! Call me a wimp, but this desert rat thinks 60 degrees in the house is a tad cold! Just a short break to make another pot of tea....

REVIEW: I Am the Ice Worm

Title: I Am the Ice Worm
Author: MaryAnn Easley
ISBN: 044041444X/ Dell, 1998
Young Adult Fiction
Protagonist: 14-year-old Allison Atwood
Setting: present-day, an Inupiat village above the Arctic Circle
Rating: B

First Line: The coldest wind I'd ever felt in my life blasted me across the ice.

Allison's parents are divorced. She's been living with her father in southern California, but she's tired of the status quo and decides to hop a plane to visit her mother who's teaching in a small village in Alaska. On the last leg of her journey, the small plane she's in crashes, and the pilot is killed. Allison is stranded out in the ice and snow until she's found by an Inupiat trapper. Allison packs one duffle with her most prized makeup, music and clothes and climbs aboard the sled for the ride to the trapper's home.

Allison is far from ready for the intense culture shock. A true child of the ease and comfort of southern California, she can't get used to the smelly, dirty dwelling and the smelly, dirty people. They don't even have a bathroom or running water!

Matu still lived in the Dark Ages as far as I was concerned. He'd never even eaten a pizza or ridden a surfboard or gone to Disneyland. He had a blank look on his face when I told him about some of my favorite rock groups.

After a few days have passed, she persuades a young Inupiat boy to hitch his dogs to his sled and take her to the village where her mother is teaching. They don't get far due to the weather. Allison now has to live in a village of people whose ways she does not understand or like. Will she ever be reunited with her mother?

I quite enjoyed this little tale of a young girl learning tolerance and acceotance of a culture so different from her own. I think it's something that everyone should experience at least once in their lives to curtail the onset of self-righteousness and bigotry.

REVIEW: A Bird in the Hand

Title: A Bird in the Hand
Author: Ann Cleeves
ISBN: 0449133494/ Fawcett, 1986
Cozy Mystery, #1 George and Molly Palmer-Jones
Protagonist(s): George and Molly Palmer-Jones, retired birdwatchers
Setting: mostly Norfolk, England in the mid-1980s
Rating: B+

First Line: It was a warm May evening, a Saturday, and a small boy was playing with a home-made model boat at the edge of a pool.

I've read the first two books in Cleeves' Shetland Quartet mystery series and loved them. I'm also a birdwatcher, and lately I seem to keep stumbling over birdwatcher-themed mysteries. When I learned that Cleeves had written just such a series, I couldn't rest until I'd tracked the first one down. Once again, Paperback Swap came through for me.

George and Molly Palmer-Jones are both retired; he from the Home Office, Molly from a career as a social worker. George traded in his Volvo for a Morris Minor van, and now he and Molly travel around the country in search of rare birds. George loves spending his time this way; Molly loves spending time with George. When Tom French, a rather well-known "twitcher" is found dead in Norfolk, a mutual acquaintance asks George to look into the murder. George and Molly find themselves traveling around England in search of clues--and sighting a few birds along the way.

Nowadays, it seems there are cozy mysteries with every theme known to humankind: knitting, scrapbooking, interior design, coffee, tea, chocolate, cats, dogs...you get the picture! The problem I've found with several of them is that knitting, tea, whatever, is just a gimmick to get a person to read the book. Once you get into the book, there's very little of the theme that captured your interest in the first place. Fortunately A Bird in the Hand is not one of these. I learned so much about birding in Britain, the slang that birding fanatics use, and some of the better areas for sighting rare birds, that I feel as though my IQ went up a notch or two. For once I found a segment of the British population that doesn't seem unable to travel more than ten miles from home. Just read this description of twitching-- the madness that comes over some people when they hear a rare bird has been sighted:

On the Friday night the news was received and passed along the grapevine with intense excitement. Anxious parents consulted timetables, packed up sandwiches and let schoolboy sons, rude and uncommunicative in their fear that the bird might have gone, spend their first night away from home. Students waited until pub closing time, walked through evening streets to motorway exits, and began to hitch-hike to Norfolk. Responsible family men cancelled family plans, filled their cars with students and schoolboys and drove across the country, revelling in the irresponsibility of the night-time drive, the madness and the expense of it all. That was the attraction of twitching: the escape from anxious parents, lectures and essays, work and families, the knowledge that, despite all the effort and the movement, in the morning the bird might have gone.

Although A Bird in the Hand was written in the 1980s, it didn't really seem dated, except for the lack of cell phones. (Cell phones must be a British birder's best friend in this day and age.) The plot moved along well, and as the pages turned, I saw how the characters of George and Molly were so well suited to each other. George, prickly and impatient in piecing together the clues, needed Molly's level head and calming influence more than once. This is a very good debut novel, and in it I can see the seeds of the wonderful Shetland Quartet that was to come.

REVIEW: Duma Key

Title: Duma Key
Author: Stephen King
ISBN: 9781416552963/ Pocket Books, 2008
Horror
Protagonist: Edgar Freemantle
Setting: present-day Duma Key, Florida
Rating: A

First Line: Start with a blank surface.

Edgar Freemantle was a wealthy Minnesota builder until a construction site accident severed his right arm, broke his right leg and hip, scrambled his mind and destroyed his marriage. With his mind sending him into rages, Edgar decides to leave Minnesota for a year and recuperate elsewhere. He decides on Salmon Point, a big pink house right on the beach on Duma Key, Florida. For such a beautiful place, Duma Key is strangely undeveloped, but it's the perfect place for Edgar to heal, and to make friends with his neighbors: Elizabeth Eastlake, the old lady who owns Duma Key, and her caregiver, Wireman.

As Edgar heals, he begins to paint--feverishly, compulsively--and the talent his painting shows is as much a weapon as it is a wonder. You see...Edgar's creations are not just paintings but portals for the ghosts of Elizabeth's past to walk through.

I've been a fan of Stephen King since Carrie and Salem's Lot were published. One of my all-time favorite reading tales revolves around Salem's Lot. Although there was a period of years when I didn't read any of his books because I got the feeling they were cranked out on a conveyor belt, I've now gotten back in the habit. The major thing I've always enjoyed about King's writing is his voice. I always feel as though King is channeling that voice inside my head that says everything I'm thinking, whether or not I verbalize it. When there's a writer who's such a comfortable fit for your private interior monologues, it's impossible to stay away.

A heron makes several appearances in Duma Key, and King captures perfectly the thought I've always had about these birds:

Beyond the tangle, on a blue-tiled walk that presumably connected with the main courtyard, stalked a sharp-eyed heron. It looked both thoughtful and grim, but I never saw a one on the ground that didn't look like a Puritan elder considering which witch to burn next.

I was sucked into this story rapidly and didn't really come up for air until it was finished. Parts of it are still washing through my mind like the tides on Duma Key. The characters of Freemantle and Wireman were vividly portrayed and likable, and I really enjoyed their camaraderie. I do wish the character of Elizabeth Eastlake figured more into the story, but I was quite happy with what King gave me to read. It's not difficult to think that, in describing the pain that Freemantle had with his injuries, King was tapping into a familiar well of his own.

This paperback edition includes "The Cat from Hell", a bonus story from Just After Sunset.

Monday Mailbox--Christmas Week

One more week for my roadrunner mailbox and then it'll go on vacation until next Christmas! Last week I only sent one book to a new home, which is pretty much as I expected. There was enough going on without adding Paperback Swap mailings to the to-do list.

I received 10 books last week. Denis scouted out my Amazon wish list when shopping for me, and came up with another on his own initiative, bless 'im. The other seven came via Paperback Swap. Here's the list:

--The Idler Book of Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK, edited by Sam Jordison and Dan Kieran. (PBS) Since Denis is British through-and-through, when this arrived, I had to stop and read through all the towns so he could see if he agreed or not. Now I have to go back and read the rest of the text because my interest is definitely piqued!

--Plague Year by Jeff Carlson. (PBS) From the back of the book: "The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the machine plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever. The nanotech has one weakness: It self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet."

--Witch Way to Murder, an Ophelia and Abby Mystery by Shirley Damsgaard. (PBS) The debut of a series about a 30-something psychic librarian and her practicing witch grandmother who solve crimes.

--The Measure of Days by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, #30 in the Morland Dynasty series--one of my favorite historicals. I'd forgotten to put this on my Amazon wish list, so Denis earned HUGE kudos for remembering and tracking it down!

--Bitch Factor by Chris Rogers. (PBS) First in a mystery series about Houston bounty hunter Dixie Flannigan.

--West From Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco 1915 edited by Roger Lea MacBride. (PBS) I've been a LIW fan since I was three or four. I couldn't resist reading letters she'd written while in the Big City.

--I Am the Ice Worm by MaryAnn Easley. (PBS) A YA book about a young girl surviving a plane crash near the Arctic Circle and being taken in by an Inupiat village. I usually enjoy reading books about two very different cultures learning about one another.

--We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee. (PBS) This book is a natural for a critter lover like me.

--Nature Journal: A Guided Journal for Illustrating and Recording Your Observations of the Natural World by Clare Walker Leslie. (Denis) At first I thought, if I received this as a gift, I'd print out some of my photos to use as illustrations. (Normally I can't draw a straight line with a ruler!) Don't tell anyone, but I bought a set of colored pencils before I left work today....

--Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. (Denis) Denis and I enjoy observing nature so much that I'm pleased he got these for me. Heaven knows, if I start trying to draw what I see, anyone who looks at my illustrations WILL see the world in a whole new way!

I also received gift cards from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and they've been duly spent. Next week's Mailbox Monday post will undoubtedly tell you all about those books!

If you're insatiably curious about the books other people receive (like me), click on the roadrunner mailbox to be taken to this fun meme's home: Marcia's excellent blog, The Printed Page!

All Quiet in Phoenix?

For any of you who have wondered where I've been in the past few days, I thought I'd throw up a flare. Instead of working a 4-hour shift as scheduled, Denis put in a 12-hour shift, so I was knocking around the house all by my lonesome on Christmas Day. Once he finally got home, we had a splendid day together.

Fortunately for me, I'm an only child and grew up knowing how to amuse myself, so I wasn't spending Christmas Day with my face "hanging out", as Grampa would say. I've been dissatisfied with my blog template for a while now, so on Christmas Day, I decided to start doing something about it. I've been teaching myself bits and bobs of HTML, starting with a basic template and tarting it up to suit myself. Any of you who subscribe to my blog may see some strange posts with even stranger dates on them showing up in your feed, but that's just me using some cheats to have a Blogger template act like a Wordpress one. Once I get those posted, I'll be ready to unveil the new template.

I found three books under the tree Christmas Day, and when I went to work yesterday, I received an Amazon gift card and one from Barnes & Noble as well. Of course, I scurried home after my shift and spent them!

So this is why I've been a bit quiet the past few days. I should return to my regularly scheduled broadcast by New Year's Day!

Working on My Best of 2008 Lists

I've started going through my book journal, where I've written info on each book that I've read this year, in order to begin compiling my Best of 2008 reading lists. I usually make two lists of ten books each: one for mysteries, and one that combines all genres. The first thing I do is make a list of all the books I've given A+ ratings to...all the books that made me say, "WOW!" when I finished the last page. I have my work cut out for me in whittling down the list, which now stands at twenty-three. I won't be finishing this or posting the results until the first of the year. (The last book I read in 2007 at 11:30 PM on December 31 turned out to be one of my top reads, so I take no chances!)

Here's the list I have to work from right now (in reading order only):

--Burning Road by Ann Benson (SciFi)
--Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda (Mystery)
--The Dead Hour by Denise Mina (Mystery)
--Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina (Mystery)
--A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley (Historical Fiction)
--You Can Prevent Global Warming by Langholz & Turner (Non-Fiction)
--Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Young Adult)
--Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride (Mystery)
--All Shall Be Well by Deborah Crombie (Mystery)
--The Stick Game by Peter Bowen (Mystery)
--The Bones of Plenty by Lois Phillips Hudson-- the very first review on my brand-new blog (Historical Fiction)
--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (Fiction)
--Into the Forest by Jean Hegland (SciFi)
--Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie (Mystery)
--Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Young Adult)
--Cruzatte and Maria by Peter Bowen (Mystery)
--Kindred by Octavia Butler (SciFi)
--Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley (Historical Fiction)
--The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Mystery)
--Echoes From the Dead by Johan Theorin (Mystery)
--Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley (Historical Fiction)
--Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien (Non-Fiction)
--No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (Mystery)

In typing this list, I've already mentally pruned two titles from it. Although they both had the WOW! response, they just don't stack up against the rest. Which two are they? Twilight and Mark of the Lion. That's all you'll get before January 1!

How about you? Do you compile a list of your Best Reads of the year? Do you enjoy the process, or find it painful?

Mailbox Monday-- 'tis Better to Give and Receive!

This past week, I sent 15 books to new homes. I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I did. In return, I received 10 books, all from Paperback Swap. Here's the rundown on what appeared in my mailbox. (Unfortunately I don't have a couple of helpful roadrunners hanging around mine!)

--A Bird in the Hand by Ann Cleeves, the first of the George and Molly Palmer-Jones mystery series about a pair of English birdwatchers. I've read and enjoyed the first two of Cleeves' Shetland Quartet mysteries, so I thought I would try some of her other books.

--The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, the first of the Asey Mayo mysteries. The term "farce-melodrama" is mentioned on the back of the book, so this may be interesting!

--Buried Bones by Carolyn Haines, the second in the mystery series featuring Sarah Booth Delaney in the Mississippi Delta. I got rather tired of a running joke in the first otherwise very good book, and this second in the series will be the acid test!

--Laceys of Liverpool & Dancing in the Dark by Maureen Lee, an omnibus edition containing two novels in Lee's series about families in Liverpool during World War II. These were recommended to me by a PBS friend.

--Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continously Lived-In House by Sarah Messer. I love old houses and the stories they have to tell!

--The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr. Non-Fiction.

--The House by Princes Park by Maureen Lee, another of her Liverpool series.

--He Saw a Hummingbird by Norma Lee Browning and Russell Ogg, the true story of a diabetic, blind former photographer and a hummingbird that came into his life.

--Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron.

--Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West by Anne Seagraves. I remember seeing this book in a shop in Tombstone, Arizona. I almost bought it. Now I have a copy. Filled with fascinating old photos and text, I'm looking forward to this one.

There you have it--my haul from last week. If you'd like to join in this fun meme or just read other participants' answers, click on the mailbox up at the top to be taken to Marcia's excellent blog, The Printed Page!

REVIEW: The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Title: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Author: J.K. Rowling
ISBN: 9780545128285/ Arthur A. Levine
Young Adult
Rating: A

First Line: The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of stories written for young wizards and witches.

Translated from the Ancient Runes by Hermione Granger
Commentary by Albus Dumbledore
Introduction, Notes, and Illustrations by J.K. Rowling

How on earth could any Harry Potter fan pass this book up after reading the above three lines? I know I couldn't! I picked up this book last night, and I've never had 111 pages fly by so quickly. There are five tales included in the book: The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump, and The Tale of the Three Brothers. Each is followed by commentary from Albus Dumbledore.

Each tale has a lesson to teach, and the commentary and footnotes by Dumbledore add a great deal to the book's enjoyment-- especially his telling of Beatrix Bloxam's reworking of the very first tale. It would be difficult for me to choose a favorite from among these tales, but I have to admit a fondness for The Wizard and the Hopping Pot because of my twisted mind. The Hopping Pot reminds me that one of my favorite dishes to prepare in my crock pot is Hoppin' John. Every time I see the title of this tale, I have a mental picture of being chased by a big enchanted pot of Hoppin' John!

The only thing I can find to complain about with The Tales of Beedle the Bard is its brevity. This was, indeed, another case of my turning the last page and becoming Oliver Twist. Please, Miss--I want some more!

===

Scholastic will give the net proceeds from the sale of each book to the Children's High Level Group, a charity cofounded in 2005 by J.K. Rowling and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, MEP. The Children's High Level Group campaigns to protect and promote children's rights and make life better for vulnerable young people.

REVIEW: The Hellfire Conspiracy

Title: The Hellfire Conspiracy
Author: Will Thomas
ISBN: 9780743296403/ Touchstone
Historical Mystery, #4 in the Barker & Llewelyn series
Protagonist(s); Clive Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, private enquiry agents
Setting: London, England in the 1880s
Rating: A-

First Line: I recognized the sound, though I had never heard it before.

This series, loosely patterned after Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, is fun to read. Told from the point of view of Thomas Llewelyn, a young Welsh ex-convict who was given a job by private enquiry agent, Clive Barker, each book in the series is set in a different district in London's East End. Thomas is fascinated by his boss: a tall, strong, mysterious man who always wears dark glasses. He knows that Barker spent many years at sea and in China, that Barker is extremely intelligent and well-read, that he prefers to drink gunpowder green tea, and that he knows martial arts. But there are many areas of Barker's life that are unknown to him. Thomas is a babe in the woods with an eye for the ladies, and these two characteristics are part of the charm of his narration.

In this fourth installment, Barker and Llewelyn are interrupted in the office by a desperate Guards officer, Major DeVere, whose twelve-year-old daughter has disappeared. At first thought to be a victim of white slavers, as Barker and Llewelyn begin investigating, they find that the culprit is really a serial killer preying on young girls in Bethnal Green. Their job is to identify and catch the murderer before the body count gets any higher.

As always, the author immersed me in the streets of London. I could see, hear, smell and taste the Bethnal Green area. Thomas's narration brought more than a few smiles and chuckles, and the race to find the killer was engrossing. The only reason why I downgraded the book a bit was that I knew the identity of the killer when the character was first introduced, and this isn't normal for a book by this author. Even though I knew whodunit, the chase more than made up for it.

If you like historical mysteries set in Victorian London that have a touch of humor, you should give Will Thomas's books a try.

This copy of The Hellfire Conspiracy also includes a Reading Group Guide and an interview with Will Thomas.

Happy Holidays!

If you liked seeing how our home looks at this time of year by day, head on over to Kittling: Personal Observations to see how it looks at night. Ahhhh...this is my favorite time of year!

REVIEW: A Rant of Ravens

Title: A Rant of Ravens
Author: Christine Goff
ISBN: 0425173607/ Berkley Prime Crime
Cozy Mystery/ #1 in the Birdwatcher's Series
Protagonist: Rachel Stanhope, creative designer for a PR firm
Setting: a bird sanctuary in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado
Rating: C

First Line: Dipped out?

Rachel Stanhope, a talented designer for a public relations firm in New York City, has a marriage in shambles. When she learns that her Aunt Miriam is going on a birding tour of the Mid-East and needs a member of the family to keep an eye on Bird Haven, Miriam's 2,500-acre ranch/ bird sanctuary in Colorado, Rachel makes arrangements to telecommute and packs off to the Rocky Mountains. She barely has a chance to unpack before word's out that there's been a rare sighting of a LeConte's sparrow. When she joins the birdwatchers in an attempt to find the sparrow, she finds the body of a journalist instead--a journalist who'd just threatened to expose Miriam's late husband for illegally selling raptors from Bird Haven. Knowing that her aunt will be the police chief's prime suspect, Rachel decides to do her own investigating, but then Aunt Miriam and three rare birds go missing.

Anyone who's taken a look at my other blog, Kittling: Personal Observations, knows that I've been known to watch a bird or two. When I learned that there was a birdwatcher's mystery series, I simply had to track down the first one and give it a try. I have mixed emotions about A Rant of Ravens. The Colorado setting was well-done, and I did learn about the illegal traffic in raptors and the laws protecting them. Unfortunately, none of the characters really stood out as particularly interesting, and I knew the Bad Guy as soon as he walked into the room. All in all, I'd say this book was average. Will I try the second in the series? Yes, but I'm not going to break any speed records in doing so.

Want to See My Christmas Decorations?

I know that I've mentioned my holiday decorating and thirteen Christmas trees to some of you, and you've been wanting to see photographic evidence. The photo here is just a little teaser for you. If you'd like to see what our home looks like during the daylight hours right now, head on over to Kittling: Personal Observations. You'll be able to see the whole kit and caboodle over there!

Thank You, Beth!

When I fired up the computer this morning, I discovered an early Christmas present. Beth, from Beth Fish Reads, had given me the Diversity Award because she enjoys both Kittling: Books and Kittling: Personal Observations, which spotlights some of my photography. Thank you, Beth!

This award deals with values we deem important in others. Now it is my turn to choose which six values are important to me, six I don't care for at all, and to share this award with six other bloggers.



Six Values/ Qualities in Others That Are Important to Me:

• sense of humor
• generosity
• intelligence
• common sense
• curiosity
• easy going temperament

Six Values/ Qualities in Others That I Can't Tolerate:

• bigotry of any size, shape or form
• greed
• cruelty
• whining
• egomania
• hypochondria

Six Bloggers to Award:

• Best Hunter Gatherer Award to Patti of Pattinase, for the superb job she does each week on Friday's Forgotten Books. This weekly forum has whetted my appetite for many books that have fallen beneath the radar.
  
• Best Eye on Nature Award to June of Spatter. Whenever my reader says there's a new post from June, I know it's going to be a marvelous photograph that makes me see the world around me in an entirely different way.
• Best Observer of All Things Mysterious Award to Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise for her excellent insight into crime fiction and her willingness to help and share with others.
  
• Best Friend to the Desert Award to Kathie of Sycamore Canyon for her beautifully photographed and informative posts about her walks out in the Sonoran Desert.
  
• The Picante Award to Corey of The Drowning Machine. Anyone who's read this blog knows Corey's spicy blend of intelligence and humor.
• The Lovingkindness Award to Michelle of Rambling Woods for her words and photos that have made me come to care so much for what she observes in her daily life.

So now blogging nominees, it’s up to you to go forth and follow these simple guidelines:

Mention the blog that gave it to you.
Comment on their blogs to let them know you have posted the award.
Share 6 values that are important to you.
Share 6 things you do not support.
Share the love with six other wonderful blogging friends.

REVIEW: These Three Remain

Title: These Three Remain
Author: Pamela Aidan
ISBN: 9780743291378/ Touchstone
Historical Fiction, #3 in a trilogy
Rating: A-

First Line: "Heigh-up, there!" James the coachman's voice rang out in its familiar timbre, urging the team pulling Darcy's traveling coach to put to in their harnesses and take them through the tollgate out of London and on to the road to Kent.

Pride and Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite books, so I tend to look very skeptically at any "fan fiction", no matter the author or publisher. For some reason, Aidan's trilogy intrigued me enough to sample the first book in the trilogy, An Assembly Such As This, which begins the Pride and Prejudice tale from Darcy's viewpoint. I was hooked and soon had read the second, Duty and Desire. Although not as strong as the first, I could not leave the trilogy unfinished.

These Three Remain picks up the story at the time Elizabeth visits the Collins, and Darcy visits his aunt, Lady Catherine de Burgh. After that long period of time in Duty and Desire when the two didn't see each other, this third book in the trilogy rebounds solidly and is just as strong and satisfying as the first.

Aidan does an excellent job with the language of the time, which isn't as easy as it may appear. Aidan's writing sounds like Austen without being a slavish imitation, and yet it still flows smoothly to the modern ear. The characters she introduces to the story are well-drawn and just as interesting as the familiar ones we know and love from the original. The very first time I read Pride and Prejudice, I remember thinking, "What did Darcy think about all of this?" Aidan satisfies my curiosity in fine style, working through all of his reactions to Elizabeth's resounding refusal of his proposal to how he decided to change his character and win fair lady.

If, like me, you've been hesitant to read follow-ups to Pride and Prejudice, I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised with Pamela Aidan's trilogy.

Tuesday Thingers--There's No Place Like Home

Today's Question: The LT Home Page feature. How are you liking it? Or not? Do you go here when you log into LT or do you use your profile page more?



Although I have LibraryThing set on my speed dial to load my profile page, I find myself clicking on my home page almost immediately, so I should reset my speed dial! I like the home page, and I like the fact that I can customize it to emphasize what's important to me: Announcements, Early Reviewer info, my zeitgeist.... I like the Tag Watch feature because I often find new-to-me books in certain genres that I collect. The only thing that bugs me about the home page is that I can't completely block certain forum threads. I can "x" them so they disappear, but the next time I load the page, they're right back. Some threads I'm just not interested in, and I wish that one "x" would do it!

If you'd like to see more responses to this meme, just click on the Tuesday Thingers logo at the top of this post!

They Did WHAT?!?

Once again the folks who decide which words belong in a dictionary and which words don't have me grinding my teeth and shaking my head. This time the culprits did a number on the Oxford University Press' Junior Dictionary.

Why am I giving my dentist more work to do? Because of the words they've axed! Certain groups in the UK are up in arms about many words pertaining to religion and history that are no more--at least in the newest edition of the children's dictionary. Although I'm not overly religious, they have a point. If a child happens to watch the evening news, sees Bishop X talking to a group, and wonders what a bishop is, that child isn't going to learn by picking up a copy of the Oxford Junior Dictionary! The same thing applies to "empire", "monarch" and "chapel".

Here are some more words that were culled and made my voice go up a couple of octaves when I read them aloud:

decade
holly
mistletoe
goldfish
hamster
bacon

I won't continue. It's painful. For the most part the words that were cut from the dictionary refer to the natural world. The words that were added refer to computers, the Internet and computer gadgets. We might as well go full steam ahead into global warming because Oxford has put the natural world on the endangered species list!

Read the entire article here if you dare. I've had it bookmarked for four days to see if my sense of disbelief and outrage would subside. As you can see, it didn't work. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!