A fine reading selection

Okay, the title is misleading. This is more of an eclectic platter of various books.

We're going on a trip up north to Minnesota and I, of course, will be bringing books. Let me explain my selection.

First, Wildwood by Colin Meloy. (I'll probably review this one when we get back)
I am in the process of reading this one, so he had to come, and we are going to the Northern Woods. This book is called Wildwood. The setting is quite perfect. I am loving this book and I really want to see what happens, so that is a must have.

Second, The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien.
As a general rule, when I am traveling, I bring a book that I have already read. When I know that there will be a long wait (I'm thinking layovers when flying to and from France) I bring a long book that I know I will like. It's generally not one that I have read recently, so I'm still interested in it despite knowing what it is. For this trip, there won't be a layover and I can't read in the car, so length wasn't as important as interest. I haven't read The Hobbit in a while, which is why I chose it instead of Harry Potter (there's also the fact that I read the entire Chamber of Secrets in a two hour flight, so it's not the best travel choice for me). In addition, the book is called There and Back Again and is the story of a long journey. I like to imagine that I'm riding my pony besides Thorin's company.

Third, Sherlock Holmes Volume II, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
This is on my list of books to read and it's just a bunch of short stories so I can read one here and there when I don't want to listen to the trolls fighting over how to cook dwarf. Also, Sherlock. I couldn't not bring him.

So there you go, my reading selection for this week: an "in progress" book, a "pre-read" book and a "to read" book. While I'm gone, you guys can amuse yourselves by answering these questions in the comments below!

What books do you like to bring when you travel and why?

Are you going anywhere book-related this year (say, Hobbiton, New Zealand)?

Can you read in the car or are you like me and it gives you an instant headache?

An Unexpected Read

I went to the library to get a drink of water. Let's just start by pointing that out. I had no intentions of getting a book. I wasn't even finished Narnia and had barely started Wildwood. So no, no books.

But this one, this one drew me in. It had a strange shape, square instead of rectangular. The cover was strange and the title was barely legible. I don't know why that made it particularly attractive, but it did. I picked it up off the shelf, read the summary, leafed through a few pages, as you do. Then...I slid to the floor and started reading it in the middle of the aisle. Well then, that plan failed.

The Wikkeling by Steven Arnston.

The cover is creepy, indeed some parts of the story are creepy too, but my goodness, I loved it.

It takes place in a new society (dystopian, just the way I like it) but it was still believable. It's a lovely, random story. The characters are attaching, the setting is convincing and the villain is uncomfortably creepy (sign of a good villain). Also, there's an illustrated bestiary in the middle, which I loved.

I highly recommend this book if you have a few hours to kill. It's an über quick read and interesting all the way through. I didn't mean to pick it up but I'm so glad I did.

Based on a cover

I finished Sherlock Holmes Volume I and will eventually start Volume II. I won't review it because I absolutely loved it and my review would be completely pointless. It was clever, well paced, interesting, funny at times, generally wonderful. Also, very useful in impressing people.

"What's that huge book you're reading? Oh the complete novels and short stories of Sherlock Holmes? That's pretty amazing for someone your age." Feel free to bow and tip your deerstalker hat to those people.

I have started to read Wildwood by Colin Meloy. I will admit that I was completely smitten with the cover and that that's the main reason why I bought it in the first place. It's gorgeous.

 

I mean look at it. How could I not buy it? And the book is very thick and the pages are uneven and it smells just like a book should. As for the story inside the book, I'll keep you updated on that because I've only read a few chapters so far.

This is a funny contrast, I just realized. I finished a literary classic and have now begun reading a kid's book. My book tastes are kind of all over the place, aren't they? For the record, my two favorite genres are epic fantasy and dystopian. I'll probably write a whole post about why I love those, but that's a story for another day. 

Also, no matter how unnecessary this may be, I will share a few words of wisdom with you. If you're like me, you're terrible at remembering a good joke (or any joke for that matter). I have two jokes that I can remember. One is a blonde joke (And before you get all offended, I'm blonde, so it's funny. Also, I indirectly learned it from Richard Armitage, so there.) and the other is a nerd joke. Here it is for your convenience.

An elf walked into a bar. The hobbit laughed and walked under it.

You're welcome.

The White Woods and the Demon Hunters

At the moment, I am reading two books (yes, I know, shame on me and all that), one of which is Sherlock Holmes, the other is Narnia.

 

I love Narnia. Well, I loved the movies, but I had only read the Magician's Nephew which didn't really speak to me. Then I went to the library with a friend and she told me to take out The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I love it.

I love the way I can see it all in my head, the way that I can see the woods and Mr. Tumnus' cave and the Beavers' dam. I love that it's set in winter because, in my opinion, most fairy tales should take place with white snow and icicles. Even if the snow is the curse of an evil witch queen.

I'm not done yet, because I only ever read it before going to bed, one chapter a day. Sherlock is my day read but I like me a good fairy tale before going to sleep. It makes me feel little again, you know?

Also, it's a good way to counter-balance the freakiness of the new show I've been watching on Netflix, Supernatural. Basically, two siblings, Sam and Dean, go around the country killing demons and creatures of evil. It's awesome but scary, which leaves me very conflicted and afraid of the dark. I highly recommend it (if you're not too squeamish, it is a bit gory).

In other news, today is my last day of school! I have finished the first round of high school, only three left to go.

Brief Public Servic Announcement

Stop whatever it is that you're doing! Just stop right now.

It's here!
It's here!
Martin-Jawn-Bilbo-Baggins and a Benedict Dragon!

I am of course speaking of the trailer of The Desolation of Smaug.

It's here, oh my goodness.

That is all. You may now continue on with your day.

Rainy Day Tunes

So, it's raining. And it's supposed to rain for the next few days.

For your convenience I have compiled a list of things to do when it rains.

Listen to Of Monsters and Men. Their music is just perfect rainy day music.

Knit.

Read Sherlock Holmes.

Watch Lord of the Rings.

Bake.

(I didn't make those by the way, but I wish I had)

Snuggle with your cat. The fatter the cat, the better.

Lounge around, listening to the raindrops hit the window.

I always find rain inspiring. It's a connection, in a way, to people around the world. Where else did this water fall? Who else looked up to the gray sky and felt the rain wash over their face?

I love rain.

I can't think of a creative title

Ender's Game

by Orson Scott Card

Finished!

I actually finished it yesterday, but then War Horse happened and besides, I needed time to think over my opinion of the book.  

A little summary before I begin. In the far future of the Earth, Andrew "Ender" Wiggins is a special boy who is taken to Battle School, a school in space where boys (and a few girls) are trained to become soldiers and commanders to defeat the buggers, creatures who attempted to invade Earth many years ago. To train for this, the children are put into armies and fight in simulation-type games. It's a little strange to wrap your brain around, but frankly, I'm used to sci-fi and fantasy authors thinking of weird things.

Okay, so, opinions. The story started off nicely, stuff happened, it was a good pace, and then it started to drag on a bit. Many characters were introduced, things happened, but I couldn't really see where it was all going. Then, bam, plot twist, we're back on Earth with Ender's family. Back in space, back to Earth, back to space. Ender gets taken elsewhere, stuff starts happening on Earth, it all gets mixed up and slightly confused. Then, BAM, big plot twist, everything changes, the end. 

So here is what I had issues with: the end has very little connection to the beginning. The author kind of drops you and leaves you with something totally different.

Also, the writing style. Overall, the book was written in third person, but sometimes it switched to the first for no reason. I assume that it was to highlight the thoughts or view of the character in question, but I thought it was very unnecessary and confusing at times.

That said, I like the story and the meaning behind it. The idea that the fate of all humankind rests in the hands of a young boy, that children can make a huge impact on the world. That was the main theme in this book, basically: no matter how small you are, you matter, and you can achieve great things. In Ender's case, that means killing multiple individuals, but you know, that wasn't the point.

In conclusion, I will be reading the next two books as well as Ender's Shadow, as recommended by a few of my friends. Not great literature, but a good read, I couldn't put it down. I'm sure my teachers noticed. In fact, having the book lie in front of me during bio caused my bio teacher to make a speech on the importance of reading. (I awarded him 1000 awesome points in the process, because he recommended some more books to me.) Also, apparently Ender's Game used to be taught as part of the freshman English curriculum, which is interesting.

I think that before I go get the previously mentioned books at the library, I will finish Volume I of the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes. I only have a little bit left to go. (Relatively speaking of course; I have over 200 more pages yet to read! In all fairness, though, in a book that's 1059 pages long, 200 isn't that bad.)

The horse and the war

War Horse

directed by Steven Spielberg

Okay first off let me state that yes this is technically a book blog, BUT I conveniently wrote "and other things" in the title. So there.

I watched War Horse today, and I have many conflicting opinions about it. My first reaction would be to say "This film is awful, a bunch of horrible things happen to horses and Benedict Cumberbatch." But that would be shallow and ridiculous, so I'm not going to say that.

First opinion. I am a rider. I ride horses. I know how they act. You cannot train a yearling to pull a plow in under a month. That does not work. No one else would notice things like that, but I kept cringing when the training of a young fiery thoroughbred was achieved in less than a month by a teenager. It was a horse movie. The horse had a best friend and a human best friend. I don't know how I feel about that. 'Jealous' is most likely because none of the horses I know would run through World War I to come back to me.

Second opinion. Shots and transitions. I like Spielberg, I like the way his films look and the overall feeling in them. However, some transitions and the way some shots were filmed stood out to me as a little strange. That may just be me, though.

Third opinion. It's sad. It's very, very sad. I was not aware of how sad it would be. I will not give you any spoilers, but I cried. It was sad in a "I'm going to close my eyes and plug my ears and think of happy things now" way. Denial is my way of coping with sad movies.

Fourth opinion. Well it's not really an opinion, but whatever. Benedict Cumberbatch had a mustache. What.

Fifth opinion.  Again, not an opinion. I think the title makes it pretty clear, but this is first and foremost a movie about a war. It is heart wrenching to watch at times. Make of that what you will, but be warned.

Conclusion. I liked it. Didn't love it, will probably not watch it again because I'm going to bawl, but I would recommend it to you all. Although if you love horses like I do, a few scenes might be pretty tough to watch. I closed my eyes a few times.

I realize that I should probably have given you a summary of the movie. In short, boy meets horse, horse and boy become best friends, WWI happens, horse gets taken away by the army, bad things happen to horse, boy becomes soldier, boy finds horse, the end. This is a very crude summary, you can google it, or better yet, watch the movie!

This sounds really sassy and negative. I did enjoy the movie! You should watch it!

Good end of Friday and/or happy beginning of Saturday!

The little boy with the funny scar

Harry Potter

by J.K. Rowling

It's funny, isn't it? 

How a small paperback can do so much?

This is the first time that anything like this has happened, that a children's book has conquered the world, one page at a time. 

There are so many stories of people whose lives have changed because of little Harry, the strange scruffy boy living at number 4 Privet Drive. 

Personally, this story has affected my life very much. These were the first "big books" that I read. They were the gateway to reading and writing for me. J.K. Rowling has inspired me, she taught me that anything is possible and that good always triumphs over evil. She inspired me to start writing. Most of all though, the Harry Potter series is a gateway to making friends. I have a lot of friends that I wouldn't have met had I not read and loved these books. It starts with a recognition that someone else has read and enjoyed the same books, then it kind of goes from there when you realize that they have a lot more in common with you. As a general rule, all of my friends have read the Harry Potter books or have at the very least seen the movies. It's not my "standard" for a friend, I won't hate someone if they haven't, but it's statistically more likely that we will be friends if they have. 

For those select few of you who don't know what the Harry Potter series is about, I will attempt to summarize here.  Harry Potter is the story of a little boy with a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning. He's an orphan living with his aunt and uncle, rather unhappily, until a giant man appears and tells him that he is a wizard and that he has been accepted to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He goes to Hogwarts, meets Ron and Hermione and learns magic. Eventually, he finds out that a man named Lord Voldemort killed his parents along with many others, but that somehow he, Harry, survived when he was only a baby. Over the course of the series, he finds out more about his past and his connection to Voldemort. 

In addition to my tireless desire to go to Hogwarts, the reason I love the books is because of the characters. They're believable and attaching. Who wouldn't want to have dinner at the Weasley house, or meet Dumbledore, or the Marauders? They have so much depth that you get to know them in a way. You know that Hermione exhausts herself with studies before exams, and holds the rights of house elves at heart. You know that no one on the Quidditch team really pays attention to Oliver Wood before a game, but they still do their best to please him. It's little things like that, knowing what a character will say or how he will react. The ability to say "Oh yeah, he would do that, wouldn't he?"and get exasperated with them, as if they were one of your friends. That's really what I love with these books.

So if you haven't read them, go ahead and take the plunge. If not for the story, do it for the experience, the knowledge that you are contributing to an extraordinary and never-before-seen phenomenon. If you've only seen the movies and enjoyed them, I highly recommend the books, because they are funnier and more profound. I know that personally, in the movies, I always wanted to see more of the classes. In the books, you follow Harry around to his classes and to the Great Hall which makes it so much more tangible. 

So there you go, the first installment in the Series Series. Hope you enjoyed my long-winded praise for Harry Potter!

As always, leave comments and suggestions below and have a nice day! 

I would put some kind of the joke or pun here, but to reward you for reading to the end, I'll spare you the agony.

(Also for future reference, I am a Ravenclaw.)

The game of something or other

Just kidding! Not the Hunger Games! (Could've been, though)

It's Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Not sure how I feel about the cover [insert proverb about books and covers and judging] but the book is interesting so far.

Lent and suggested to me by Addie over at a functionally messy blog which you should definitely check out!

She gave me the book this morning and since I didn't want to send it to its death at the bottom of my backpack, I just carried it around all day. I felt irrationally cool, it's not even funny. Yes.

Anyway, I've been curled up in a corner in my room, marveling in the delicious coolness that has replaced the ridiculous heat of the previous days. I don't much like hot weather because the only thing I ever want to do is lie on the floor and imitate a sea cucumber (average speed: one mile per year). In this kind of weather however, I want to do stuff. Well sort of. I only had one thing that I wanted to do when I got home today: finish my current Sherlock Holmes story and then start Ender's Game.

Mission accomplished. I am satisfied.

Poetry and stuff

Look at you getting two posts in one day, you lucky duck.

Anyway, I wrote a thing for English class because we had a to write a Shakespearan (I'm 98.45% sure that's how you spell it) sonnet about whatever we wanted. I originally started writing this whole thing about me riding my dragon to school (don't worry, my teacher's used to my strange stories by now) but that ended up not working so I trashed it and started another one when I got home.

I can't write good when I'm at school (joke, that was a joke, I know that it's "write WELL" but I'm trying to make a point here) and when I get home it's like I'm hit by the Shakespearan bolt of freaking lightning or something, and I can write a sonnet with at least four literary devices, thank you very much.

Here it is, don't yell at me if it's rubbish, because I consider myself to be more of a story writer (I feel like saying novelist is a little pretentious considering the amount of novels I've published; zero being the exact amount). If you have any constructive criticism, however, feel free to leave it in the comments, as I am on a constant mission to improve my writing regardless of its form.

Once upon a midnight moon, I dreamt a dream of a book.
Its pages, its spine, its cover, its smell.
From the thin sheets, magical words I shook.
The tale of a king and a broken bell,
The adventures of a little faery,
Perhaps even the story of a bird,
Or the known tale of a boy named Harry.
Who knows what I will find beneath a word?
You need only to turn a page to find
The small hidden corners of a new world.
A castle? A star? A beast of strange kind?
So go ahead, with your ship's flag unfurled
Sail the seas of a brand new universe.
Let's go and let reality disperse.

Yup.
I'm not sure how much sense it makes, but oh well.

Also maybe I should mention (because this is the Internet and you have to state the obvious sometimes), please don't copy and paste this poem and turn it in as your homework. First off, I'm not sure how good of a grade it'll get, second, you can certainly write something yourself and third, well, it's mine. Duh. Don't steal my stuff.

If you do want to use it for whatever reason, ask me, or just give me credit for it by linking back to this blog. This applies to all my writing henceforth. *looks up the word henceforth* Yes, henceforth.

That was more serious than I wanted, but please don't ignore it.

Here, have a puppy.

Knot a very long post

Because I'm a sucker for bad puns.

I wore this blue bow in my hair all day for no reason other than because I wanted to. Then, I realized that this is the kind of bow that Violet Baudelaire has in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Remember, her blue bow that she has to tie her hair up to think?
 
Yeah, so I thought that was pretty cool.

It also reminded me that I should add A Series of Unfortunate Events to my list of series to discuss in the Series Series project.

Series Series? What's that?

It is a project that I invented (blue ribbon and all that, for those of you who get my reference) in which I will discuss a series that I have read. It won't be a review nor will it be a summary of said series. It will be my thoughts and opinions. I will of course attempt to summarize so that you at least have an inkling of what I'm talking about, but that's not the point. There is no point. It's for fun.

Why is it called the Series Series? Because I find myself hilarious, that's why. 

Le Cirque des Rêves

The Night Circus

By Erin Morgenstern

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night."

This book was part of a project that I had set my mind to. I had decided that to re-fuel my love of books and reading, I would go about the Internet and find some books that I wanted to read that I had never read. I found many good reviews for this curious book, The Night Circus. The excerpt that I kept seeing did not give many hints so I wasn't entirely sure what the book was about; and yet it kind of filled me with wonder. I wanted to know more. I bought it online and waited impatiently for it to arrive in the post. When it did, I gave a little squeal, did a happy dance and did not let go of it all evening.

I love the way it's written. A little strange a the beginning, different from what I've read before, but it really gives you the impression that you're there, seeing the tents and smelling the chocolate mice. In my head, I could see the circus, the artists, the performers. That's why I love this book. I'm a very visual person and when a book is written so that I can see everything clearly in my head, I am very happy. This book not only had the sense of sight, but I could almost smell the sweets and the smoke of the bonfire, feel the rough fabric of the tents as I walked in, hear the rustle of my dress as I sat down to enjoy the show and the excited silence as the crowd waited expectantly for the show to begin. I fell into the book headfirst, I really did.

The back story of the characters however, wasn't as interesting as I wish it had been. I liked the characters, but didn't really feel anything for them. They didn't have very much depth, they were... I don't know, a bit too perfect, too one-sided. The plot twisted and turned around them in a very elegant and well-planned way but the characters weren't quite up to scratch in my opinion.

My favorite parts were when it was written as if someone were talking you through the circus. It's written in the second tense, which is interesting but not out of place. I usually don't like the way that some authors use the second tense, but this time it was appropriate to the story and while it didn't really drive the plot, it added depth to the setting and made it more tangible.

You can check out the author over here. She's a really wonderful person.
I hope that you enjoyed my first review and maybe want to read the book? (You should you know.)
Leave any questions and book suggestions in the comments down below and I will do my best to reply to them!