It was the winner of the 1998 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (Children) so it should not come as a surprise that I am reading these books as part of the Mythopoeic Reading Challenge.
They won the award as a trilogy so only counts as one book towards that challenge, and so short are the individual books (around [...]

When I was planning my R.I.P. III [intlink id="926" type="post"]reading pool[/intlink], I’d completely forgotten that I had a stack of Marcus Sedgwick’s to read. That was very nearly a mistake as he writes some fantastically atmospheric books that are just perfect for the challenge. So when I came across them whist turning the TBR pile [...]

photo credit: hawkexpress
This week’s theme is: catch up on… something.
Weekly Geeks #6 was catch up on reviews week, but so many of you organized bloggers were caught up with reviews that you chose to catch up on other things. So I kept in mind that a catch-up week every now and then [...]

As I’ve just joined yet another challenge, I thought it might be time to take stock and take a look at how I’m doing with them.

In the interests of honesty I should admit, the only reason I picked up this book to read was the A to Z Challenge, because, well, they’re not that many authors out the whose names start with “X” are there!
It’s not to say I didn’t want to read the book, I’m not going to choose [...]

When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookshop, she can’t believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed.With Mr. Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself thrust into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel.

Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water’s warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin
© Death Cab for Cutie
Welcome Sunday Saloners!
Well as regular visitors (who aren’t reading this in a RRS feed!) might have noticed I’ve changed my site’s skin to something a little brighter and more in keeping [...]

The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return
Picked up this mainly of the back of positive reviews on some book-blogs (some of which are linked to at the end of this review) I’ve been reading.
While I’m acquainted with the form, I haven’t read many graphic novels in recent years, not since my [...]

‘A is for Apple. A bad apple.

‘Jack has spent most of his life in juvenile institutions, to be released with a new name, new job, new life. At 24, he is utterly innocent of the world, yet guilty of a monstrous childhood crime.

To his new friends, he is a good guy with occasional flashes of unexpected violence. To his new girlfriend, he is strangely inexperienced and unreachable. To his case worker, he’s a victim of the system and of media-driven hysteria. And to himself, Jack is on permanent trial: can he really start from scratch, forget the past, become someone else? Is a new name enough? Can Jack ever truly connect with his new friends while hiding a monstrous secret?

Led by her yapping corgis to the Westminster travelling library outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen finds herself taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Duff read though it is, the following week he choice proves more enjoyable and awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours work by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen’s literary odyssey to a close.