Weekend Reads is a weekly discussion on a variety of topics. At the end of the post, I’ll include what I plan to read on the weekend.
What’s on my mind? The blueprint for life.
Really, this Weekend Reads meme is supposed to be on bookish topics but, as you see, I talk about a bunch of random shit on here, especially since I often don’t know what to talk about. Today, I’m going with what’s been on my mind since I woke up this morning:
Life.
It’s time for another book tag, a fun break from reviews and discussions and such. I was tagged for this by the awesome Orang-utan Librarian. Check her out!
The tag was created by RiverMoose-Reads. By the way, these blog names make me want to get a cool blog name with an animal in the title, like “Panda Tumbles with Books.” I love pandas!
Here we are at the end of Taran’s adventures. One would think I would be happy about it or at least sad for having to part with the story, but instead I’m pissed.
Quick summary:
I’m using the Goodreads synopsis here because I read this back in November and have since forgotten some of the details.
When the sword of Dyrnwyn, the most powerful weapon inthe kingdom of Prydain, falls into the hands of Arawn-Death-Lord, Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, and Prince Gwydion raise an army to march against Arawn’s terrible cohorts. After a winter expedition filled with danger, Taran’s army arrives at Mount Dragon, Arawn’s stronghold. There, in a thrilling confrontation with Arawn and the evil enchantress Achren, Taran is forced to make the most crucial decision of his life.
Thank you Orang-utan Librarian for nominating me for this! 😀 It’s so different and fun.
Quick summary:
Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye is an illustrated middle-grade novel about a 12-year-old orphan, Warren, who maintains his family’s hotel. The hotel fell into disrepair since Warren’s lazy uncle Rupert took over after Warren the 12th died. Despite its dilapidated state, Warren takes pride in the hotel and tries his hardest to improve its condition. But his attempts are thwarted by his evil Aunt Anaconda who rips the hotel apart as she searches for the All-Seeing Eye, rumored to be hidden somewhere in the hotel.
Soon the hotel is overrun with guests who are also interested in finding the All-Seeing Eye and it’s all Warren can do to keep the hotel together as the guests rip it apart in their search. Knowing that his aunt wants the All-Seeing Eye for nefarious means, Warren joins the search with his friends hoping to locate it before his aunt does.
Continue reading ““Warren the 13th and the All-Seeing Eye” by Tania del Rio, illus. by Will Staehle”
Weekend Reads is a weekly discussion on a variety of topics. At the end of the post, I’ll include what I plan to read on the weekend.
Where are you, Zezee?
I’m in a cocoon. I’m wrapped up so tight, I can barely move, but I am warm and I am dry. I am in front a window that looks out on the winter wonderland that is my neighborhood that overnight has metamorphosed into one of those charming neighborhoods I only see in Christmas movies. The houses are all covered in snow and bits of it have stuck to the window panes so they seem to be frosted over. There is no distinction between street and lawn and driveway and all the long, sharp limbs of the stark trees are fuzzy with wads of cottony whiteness.
A big thank you to all the bloggers who nominated me for these awards. I really appreciate it! 😀
I was nominated for a couple awards last year but I was unable to do a post for them all before the year ended, so I’ve decided to combine them all in one post. I’ll also alter the rules for the awards a little and nominate six bloggers total, two for each award.
Shout out to Hannah and Lindsay at Untamed Shrews for nominating me for this award! Thank you, ladies. 🙂
Continue reading “Encouraging Versatile Siblinghood — Awards”
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic:
Top Ten Books I’ve Recently Added To My TBR
This is perfect for a Wishes for My TBR Pile post, which is a monthly post where I list and sometimes discuss the books I’ve discovered and would like to get.
I couldn’t minimize them to 10 so here are the top 14 books I would like to get soon and read (in no particular order).
The Sellout by Paul Beatty (March 3, 2015)
A biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality — the black Chinese restaurant.
Born in the “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens — on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles — the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: “I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that’ve been there since ’68 quake.” Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes, but when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Continue reading “Top Ten Tuesday #18: Wishes for My TBR Pile #12”
I so enjoyed Michael Dirda’s review of this in his book Classics for Pleasure that I thought I would love the story. I didn’t.
Quick summary:
From the back cover of the book:
On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father’s quest to find this remote race.
To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does — in an unexpected form.
Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthrall.
It’s a mini bookhaul! Yeahie! If it wasn’t for a coupon I peeped on Barnes & Noble’s website, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. So, what have I got here?
Some champagne from work. Woohoo!!
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
And that’s it! 🙂
Zezee with Books 