Thud! by Terry Pratchett

Fantasy/Humour. Unabridged Audiobook from Harper Audio. Read by Stephen Briggs. 10 hours and 31 minutes. Published in 2005, recorded 2005. Purchased at Audible.com

Terry Pratchett is a very prolific writer, but I have yet to grow tired of his Discworld series. This is number 30 and Pratchett continues to live up to his reputation for a rousing good read. He always makes me laugh out loud and this book was no exception.

There is a companion book to this one, called Where's My Cow?. It's a picture book, believe it or not. But, if you read Thud! it will make perfect sense.

Publisher's summary:
Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch will be damned if he lets anyone disturb his city's always tentative peace, and that includes a rabble-rousing dwarf from the sticks who's been stirring up trouble on the eve of the anniversary of one of Discworld's most infamous historical events.

Centuries earlier, in a hellhole called Koom Valley, trolls met dwarfs in bloody combat. Though nobody's quite sure why they fought or who actually won, each species still bears the cultural scars and views the other with simmering animosity. Lately, an influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork's more diminutive citizens. And it doesn't help matters when the pint-size provocateur is discovered beaten to death, with a troll club lying nearby.

Vimes knows the well-being of his city depends on his ability to solve the Hamcrusher homicide. But there's more than one corpse waiting for him in the vast mine network the dwarfs have been excavating beneath Ankh-Morpork's streets. A deadly puzzle is pulling Sam Vimes deep into the muck and mire of superstition, hatred, and fear, and perhaps all the way to Koom Valley itself.

To buy from from amazon.com, click here: Thud! (Discworld, Book 30)
for audio from amazon, click here: Thud! CD

Tintin (Volume 4) Hergé

Fiction. Hardback from Little, Brown and Company. Originally published in 1945. Published in 1991. Purchased from Amazon.com

My first introduction to the Tintin books was when we lived in the Netherlands in the early 1970's. Over the years I have enjoyed introducing my kids to Tintin, and have relished rereading many of the 23 books in the series. (I haven't read all of them, but have been searching our local library to see about catching up on the ones we don't have.) Originally published in French, the books have been translated into over 50 languages. (Dutch being the first language I read them in. Can't do that anymore even though I still have the book!) I enjoy these three in one books because they are more compact than the individual editions. I do like the individual ones too, though. They have the advantage of being the original format, plus being a better choice for seeing the detail in the artwork.

Publisher's summary:
Whether he's trolling the high seas for treasure or blasting off for the moon, young reporter-sleuth Tintin and his faithful dog, Snowy, have delighted readers everywhere for generations with their timeless adventures. Join Tintin and Snowy as they tackle the toughest mysteries around the world in Red Rackham's Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls, and Prisoners of the Sun.

To buy from amazon.com, click here: The Adventures of Tintin - Red Rackham's Treasure / The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun (3 Complete Adventures in 1 Volume, Vol. 4)

The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis

Fiction. Paperback. Originally published in 1955.

This is a prequel to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The younger two kids are reading the series for school, so I read it, too. There is some debate about the order to read the series, many preferring to read it in the order it was published, rather than chronological order. C. S. Lewis is quoted to have said he thought the chronological order was probably the was to go, but he thought they could be read in either way.

I've also been reading a book about C. S. Lewis and the question of whether this series is an allegory or not has come up. According to my book, Lewis preferred to call it a "supposal", as in "Suppose Jesus came to a land called Narnia. What would that look like?" Tolkien is quoted as saying "that's the same thing as allegory", but Lewis contended that it was different. I guess I can see a small distinction between allegory and supposal, but I wonder if perhaps supposal should be a category under allegory.

In any case, this is not my first reading of The Magician's Nephew, but I enjoyed rereading it none the less.

Publisher's summary:
When Digory and Polly are tricked by Digory's peculiar Uncle Andrew into becoming part of an experiment, they set off on the adventure of a lifetime. What happens to the children when they touch Uncle Andrew's magic rings is far beyond anything even the old magician could have imagined. Hurtled into the Wood between the Worlds, the children soon find that they can enter many worlds through the mysterious pools there. In one world they encounter the evil Queen Jadis, who wreaks havoc in the streets of London when she is accidentally brought back with them. When they finally manage to pull her out of London, unintentionally taking along Uncle Andrew and a coachman with his horse, they find themselves in what will come to be known as the land of Narnia.

To buy from amazon.com, click here: The Magician's Nephew

Too Many Books?

This is what our upstairs hall has looked like for the past several months. These are mostly the kids books that won't fit into their bookshelves. (They won't fit into any of our other bookshelves either, sadly.)

Anyone else out there with books piled up in their hall?

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Fantasy. Audio from Random House Audio. Published in 2000. Recorded in 2004. Read by Roy Dotrice. 46 hours and 42 minutes. Purchased from Audible.com.

Third in the series A Song of Fire and Ice. If you are familiar at all with the Veggie Tales movies, you'll be familiar with the phrase "I laughed; I cried; it moved me Bob." spoken (in all seriousness) by Larry the cucumber in reference to story told earlier in the show. I could say the same for these books. This series has got me hooked. Now comes the agony of waiting for the rest of the books to come out.

This is not a PG-13 series, and you will not enjoy it if you expect the heroes to all live to the end. When he killed off some of my favorite characters (main characters) in this book it took me quite by surprise and really shook me up. When situations come up where there are choices to be made by the characters, I'm never sure what path Martin will take them on. I think I'd be emotionally drained if every book I read was like this, but a roller coaster ride of a book occasionally is okay by me.

If anyone out there in cyberspace has read this series, I'd love to hear what you've thought of it so far.

Publisher's summary:
Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King's Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world....

But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others--a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords. . .

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3)
from amazon.com, click here: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3)

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

Fiction. Unabridged audiobook from Random House Audio. Published in 1999, recorded in 2004. Read by Roy Dotrice. 36 hours and 38 minutes. Purchased from Audible.com

The second in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. The series is still keeping me guessing. The story does not move quickly, but I am enjoying it none the less. I'm several hours into the third book and have just discovered that this in an unfinished series, expected to go to either six or seven books. (Flashes of the agony of waiting on Robert Jordan pop into my mind.) The fourth book is due out November 8 this year, so it's going to be a long wait for the whole series. I am not especially surprised as it did not seem to me that in the third book things were beginning to be resolved. I guess I'll have to wait a long bit before knowing how it all ends up. (Me and many others, I'm sure.) Shame on me for thinking that since there were three books I would be able to read the whole series in quick secession!

Publisher's summary:
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war.
It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.

To buy from amazon.co.uk, click here: A Clash of Kings (Song of Ice & Fire)
from amazon.com, click here: A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2)

ALA's Banned Book Week

Oh, I know. I missed it. Banned Book Week was last week. I was perusing the ALA's web site though and came across a couple of quotes from J. K. Rowling I wanted to share. First on the subject of her books promoting witchcraft:

I have met thousands of children now, and not even one time has a child come up to me and said, "Ms. Rowling, I'm so glad I've read these books because now I want to be a witch."

And, secondly a bit of wisdom about banning anything comes from Rowling via Hermione, speaking to Harry in the book The Order of the Pheonix,

If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!

Check out the ALA's page for more quotes and other info about Banned Book Week.

Oh, and for an interesting article about banning by omission, check out this post on Get Religion.