Once Upon a Bookshelf

When I first read Twilight, the first book in this series, I was not happy with the conclusion of the book at all. After I had picked it up a couple more times to reread my favourite parts, I started to really love the story, so I have been waiting in anticipation for New Moon.

This book picks up in September of the next school year; Bella’s still dating Edward, a vampire, and he still refuses to turn her into a vampire, no matter how much she wants it.

Her birthday turns into a bit of an incident - she’s celebrating with Edward’s family (again, all vampires), when she gets a paper cut. Obviously, any sort of bleeding when you’re in room full of vampires is not going to go over well - one of Edward’s brothers accidentally looses control over himself, and that’s when things start to go downhill for Bella. The Cullens’ decide to leave town, and Bella’s left with her world crashing down on her.

I was so tempted to stop reading this book after the third chapter. So tempted. As it was, I had to leave it alone for a few hours before I would allow myself to go back to it. I was getting quite frustrated with how the story was turning out - I mean, really, what’s the point of a vampire book if the vampires leave after the third chapter?

I really should have trusted Meyer from the beginning. Not only did the lovely vampires come back (and oh, they came back with even more vampires than in the previous book), but while they are away Meyer also introduces us to a pack of werewolves. While these werewolves aren’t nearly as wonderful or entrancing as the Cullens are, they are still intriguing. I liked how much Meyer played with the animosity between the vampires and werewolves, while having the two groups still at truce with each other.

I still feel that these books are some of the best vampire stuff that has come out lately, and can’t wait to see what Meyer does in the next book. I want to explore the Volturi more; I want to know why certain vampires’ special abilities don’t work on Bella; and oh, I want more Alice!

I had such an Anne-ish sort of day earlier this week. You know, where you just need a little fix of Anne, because the way she views the everything makes the world just slightly more colourful and right. Thus I have been traipsing through Redmond with Anne, Gil, Prissy and Phil. It’s been lovely.

This is the third book in the Anne of Green Gables series, and after teaching for a bit, Anne’s decided to go to college on the main land with a few friends. Anne of the Island covers the four years at Redmond, where they meet all sorts of new people and live in the most wonderful of houses - Patty’s Place. (Ah, how I want a Patty’s Place!)

It’s so nice to have books that you can go back and reread time and again; that you can get reacquainted with the characters. It’s wonderful that even though you know exactly what is going to happen in the book, it doesn’t take away any of the joy of experiencing it with them again, or make the story seem old and tired.

I never fail to get slightly misty-eyed when we discover that Ruby Gillis is sick. In these books, for me, this is the point where Anne seems to really live childhood behind, as Ruby is the first of her childhood friends who dies. So sad!

Also, I resent Roy as much as ever; how could I not when he has a name like Royal Gardner? Or maybe I just resent the fact that Anne believes she’s in love with him - always a good reason to resent him, really. Right.

Incidentally, the last chapter in this book is one of my favourite chapters in all of Montgomery’s books. Mmm, lovely.

When I first saw this anthology in the bookstores, I had to grab it. I mean, it’s edited by Will Ferguson, how could it not be absolutely fabulous? (I am muchly of the belief that anything Will Ferguson touches is positively brilliant.) And oh, it was wonderful. It’s been sitting on my night table for the whole summer, while I have been savouring bits here and there whenever I felt the need for some scrumptious Canadian humour.

This anthology has selections from some of Canada’s best humour writers - some of which I had read and loved before, others of which I had never heard of; it covered everything from hockey (only to be expected), to daily life on the prairies, to everything in between.

My favourite bits were by Jack Knox, Richard J. Needham, Erika Ritter and, of course Will and Ian Ferguson. I am quite happy as this has given me more writers whose books I need to hunt down. (Like I really need that.)

When Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes while he’s attempting to avoid an ex-girlfriend, neither expected to spend the rest of the night with that person, nor wanting to spend as much time as possible, getting to know the other person as much as possible. The book spans from that question to well after the sun has risen the next day.

Both Nick and Norah are in their late teens, and are in the process of getting over tough break-ups. Both kids also seem to be big into the indy-music theme; Nick’s in a band, and Norah’s dad is some big-time music company exec. It also happens that Nick’s ex-girlfriend is a friend of Norah’s from school - ah, the complications of high-school love.

I didn’t retain too much of what I learnt in high school, but I do recall one specific conversation that one of my teachers was having with our English class one day. She said that the more people swear, the less intelligent they come across; as if they can’t find other words and so just stick with swearing instead. It struck me as true then, and still does.

So, I had a bit of a problem with the language in this book. I mean, I know teens will talk the way that Nick and Norah talk, but where’s the line between making the character believable and going overboard? It almost struck me that they were going for shock value.

Overlooking the language, though, I thought the book was quite good. I loved the characters (even if Nick came across as more emo than punk, but hey, I’m not complaining about that one), and the authors get MAJOR bonus points for the references to My So-Called Life. (Why do they always cancel the good shows?)

Ursula K. Le Guin was not completely impressed with Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of her Earthsea books.