The Tales of Beedle The Bard - J.K. Rowling

There was never any doubt that I was going to be buying The Tales of Beedle The Bard the day it came out. I have been a huge Harry Potter fan since the early days (although love the earlier books a lot more than the later ones in the series).

I was quite surprised when I saw The Tales of Beedle The Bard - it's only a small book, 108 pages in all with large print. I think I had been waiting so long for the book I was expecting more!

The book consists of 5 fairytales or parables about behaviour and what can happen to you if you are selfish, rude and heartless. I finished the book in one sitting last night and when I put the book down my partner asked me if it had been a good book - my answer was that it was "cute" - not sure if that is the effect J.K. Rowling was after but there you go! I can't say that the book rocked my socks off but I did enjoy it as another small piece of the Harry Potter world.

The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly

The Book of Lost Things was a book I had heard and read a lot about - I wasn't sure if it was really going to be my cup of tea but everything I was reading about it sounded fantastic so I decided to give it a go - and I'm so glad I did.

The book starts of in "our" world which is actually England at the beginning of WW2. We learn about a boy called David;

Once upon a time - for that is how all stories should begin - there was a boy who lost his mother.

David is a 12 year old boy with a great love for books and stories. He lives in London with his mother and father and life is great - until his mother dies after a slow and painful illness. The voice of David as he tells the story of the life and death of his mother is poignant and innocent. As his mother is dying David starts to engage in various rituals and routines in the hope that this will save his mother;

He created a routine, and he tried to keep to that routine as closely as possible, because he believed in part that his mother's fate was linked to the actions he performed. He would always get out of bed by putting his left foot on the floor first, then his right. He always counted up to twenty when he was brushing his teeth, and he always stopped when the count was completed.

Of course, these routines do not stop David's mother from dying and he is left devastated by her loss - turning to the beloved stories that they shared when his mother was alive for comfort and protection from his grief. David's father eventually takes another partner, Rose, and David and his father go to live with Rose on the outer edges of London when his baby half-brother, Georgie, is born.

David does not feel connected to his new life or his new family at all - he grieves for the loss of his mother and his life. It is then that David begins to hear his books whispering and speaking to him - talking to him of other lands and stories that sound much more inviting than his own.

Through the actions of a German air raid David comes upon the opportunity to pass through to another land through the sunken garden at the bottom of his yard. This new land is filled with demons, beasts and challenges for David - as well as protectors and friends.

I saw this story as a metaphor for a journey through grief and loss for David - he has to take the hard, painful way through to find some acceptance of his life as it currently is.

This is a beautiful, haunting (and at times scary!) story which I loved - highly recommended.

Twilight - Stephanie Meyer

I was so close to putting this book down and never picking it up again - so close and yet I kept on reading for reasons that are not really that clear to me! I knew I wasn't enjoying it, I felt the writing was predictable, dishonest, boring and painful and the main characters made me want to turn into a vampire simply so that I would have the power to destroy them!

You're probably getting the picture - this is far from a favourite read.

I had been tossing up whether to read this one for a while - I had heard rumblings of Stephanie Meyer being compared to J.K. Rowling - please!!! There is no comparison in my mind. I am trying to work out why this book, and the others in the series, are such big sellers and to be honest, I'm a little concerned that so many adolescent girls are reading these books and possibly somehow modelling themselves on the main female character, Bella.

As I had written in my previous post - I had come to a conclusion as to why I not only disliked this book - but also why it worried me enough to keep reading. The premise of Twilight is that 17 year old Bella moves to a small town in the USA to live with her father. The usual teenage plot follows - Bella doesn't really fit in, misses her life with her mum blah, blah, blah - and then she meets Edward. Dashingly handsome, beautifully brilliant Edward. All of Bella's worries are eased - until she discovers he is actually a vampire and could potentially be a fatal attraction. The "relationship" between Bella and Edward forms my main gripe with this book. Throughout the novel we hear Bella fawning over Edward only to hear Edward throw back lines such as ; "Bella, You'll be the death of me, I swear you will" following a look or a touch or a romantic word from Bella. Edward constantly gives Bella the message that it is difficult for him to control himself around her and he could very possibly do something to hurt her simply because of how enticing she is to him. As a social worker who has worked with women who have been victims of domestic violence and sexual assault I find this message consistent with what some of these women have been led to believe by the perpetrator of the violence - "you asked for it" or "you made me do it". Now, I might be reading too much into this - but this is how reading this book made me feel - angry that a young woman (even a fictional one) was being made to feel as though she was the tempation that a man (even a vampire) could not resist and that any harm that may come her way was actually her fault - simply for being an attractive female.

Needless to say, I will not be reading the other books in this series.

Should I or Shouldn't I?

I have been debating with myself for a while now over whether I should read the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer or not???

As I have mentioned before I am not a huge fan of fantasy fiction although there have been some exceptions to that rule (The Jane Eyre Affair being the latest). I seem to have a bias towards fantasy novels that are somehow set in the "real" world - Neil Gaiman novels are a favourite and I love the Harry Potter series.

So, can anybody help out so I can finally make a decision??

Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde

I am really loving this series! Lost in a Good Book is the second book in the "Thursday Next" detective/science fiction/fantasy series by Jasper Fforde. As I said in the earlier post about the first book in the series, The Eyre Affair, these are not usually the types of books I enjoy but I am just flying through these ones at the moment at the expense of my other reading plans!

Lost in a Good Book continues to tell the Thursday Next story but I feel this book probably gets a little more personal in terms of the events that are taking place in her life - the character is expanding as is the plot to the series. I love the literary references throughout the novel and I particularly liked the references to Sense and Sensibility made in the later stages of the book when Thursday "travels" into the novel and has a very pleasant encounter with Marianne Dashwood.

Maybe that's why I'm loving these books so much - I am wishing I was Thursday Next!

The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde

The Eyre Affair By Jasper Fforde was not a book I was looking to read but I was browsing in a book store last week (as I often am) and discovered one of the later books in the Thursday Next series (Thursday Next is the name of the main character in the Eyre Affair and subsequent books in the series). This more recent book has a plot revolving around Pride and Prejudice and as I am drawn to any literary reference to Jane Austen and her books I wanted to read it but thought I should do things by the book (excuse the pun) and read the first Thursday Next book first! So I have, and I enjoyed it so much i will definitely be reading the rest of the series.

As you may already know I am not a keen science fiction/fantasy reader - I like my books set in "reality" in some way. But I am a huge Harry Potter fan and I have also really enjoyed reading Neil Gaiman's books so I have come to a conclusion regarding my reading in this genre - I enjoy it as long as the characters (for the most part) are actually human and that there is some link to the world as I know it.

The Eyre Affair fits this criteria for me and as it also centres around the world of books and literature I'm hooked. The main character, a feisty 30-something year old woman by the name of Thursday Next is a likeable, passionate "Spec Ops" agent in a version of Great Britain in 1985. As one of the quotes on the back of my copy of the books states; "Forget the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure" - and I found myself able to do this.

Thursday works as a "Litera Tec" - a special agent designed to investigate crimes related to books and literature. The main literary crime in this story is the theft of the orginial Jane Eyre manuscript and an attempt by the thief to wipe out the character of Jane altogether. Sounds fanciful I know but it works so well.