Once Upon a Bookshelf

Lord Hornblower is the second-last book in the Hornblower series. It’s been a year since the events in The Commodore; Hornblower has spent the year recovering from typhoid. When he is over the typhoid, the first thing he has to do - under the utmost secrecy - is deal with a group of mutineers. Not on his ship, obviously, because everyone loves Hornblower, but on another ship in the navy. Coincidentally, someone’s ship who was on the Indy with Hornblower. That’s one thing this book has - a lot of reappearances of people from previous books. More so than any of the other books.

Of course, the mutineers episode only leads to Hornblower convincing a French city to renounce Bonaparte, and events that Hornblower started lead to the end of the war. Except it’s never that easy. As soon as they believe the war is ended, it starts over again, while Hornblower is in the middle of France. (Bad news for our Horry!)

I hate to say it, but I very much think that this is my least favourite of all of the Hornblower books that I’ve read thus far. There were some things that happened in the book that I really did not like - but won’t get into for the sake of those who have yet to read the book. But more than that, I just found that this book felt very disjointed. There were huge gaps of time in between chapters; it was almost like there were chunks missing that could have been in there to make it smoother. The events in this book felt like they could have made up two separate novels, if both were developed more. First, the dealings with the mutineers; secondly, the part where Hornblower is back in France with Marie and the Comte de Gracay (from back in Flying Colours) leading a rebellion of sorts against Napoleon. I really wish that there had been more to that second part than just a few chapters.

I have to admit, however, that I thought this ending was much better than endings in previous books.

This is another one of the books I wanted to read for the From the Stacks challenge. (My second last, hurrah! Am partially through the last one, but won’t get it picked up again until I’m back home in the New Year.)

I don’t know when I bought this book, but it’s been sitting on my shelf for so long that I had forgotten what it was about and why I had bought it in the first place. Nonetheless, I felt guilty that it was sitting there, taunting me because I had never even attemped reading it.

Watership Down is about a group of rabbits. These rabbits leave their home because one of them has a premonition about the destruction that is going to happen to their home, and they go on a journey to find a place to make a new home. While not all of the rabbits get along completely at first, they learn to completely depend on each others strengths in order to get them through the journey and to start a new home.

I will admit to having a very hard time getting through this. I couldn’t relate to any of the rabbits, really felt rather indifferent to most of them, and characters are always what draws me into or repels me from a book. I think if I had read this when I was younger I would have thought it was charming because it was about animals.

As with The Silmarillion, the part that I really enjoyed was the mythology in the book.

I spent the weekend trying to make my way through the mound of books that I have that I’m in the process of reading; trying to narrow down the number of books I’ll want to take with me next Saturday when I head to my parents’ place for a week. Sadly, I only got through one book, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to finish any of the others any time soon. Then again, maybe I’ll really get into one of the others I’m reading one night.

Fairest is set in the same universe as Ella Enchanted - which I still haven’t read. It’s about a girl, Aza, who had been abandoned as a baby in an inn. The inn keeper and his wife take her in, and she grows up as one of the family. Only thing is, she isn’t pretty. In fact you might say she’s rather prone to attracting rude remarks about her looks. When the King brings his new bride to the kingdom, she manages to accompany a duchess to the wedding, where, as luck would have it, she befriends the new queen, and becomes her lady-in-waiting. Things appear to go well until Aza discovers the queen’s enchanted mirror.

This was a charming little book. Comforting in the fact that all of the elements in it are so familiar - a retelling of Snow White and all. There are SO MANY different retellings of that fairy tale, and it was a pleasant surprise that this book still had elements in it that were completely unique.

I am craving a SciFi author I haven’t read before - preferably not about robots, not Star Wars, not Star Trek. But something in space. Any recs?

When I say that this book is worth everything I had to put up with to get it autographed by Ms. Pierce, you have to understand what I mean. I’d never read anything by this author before, so when I was told by a good friend (who somehow always manages to know exactly what she’s talking about) that I had to go and get both herself and me a copy of this book and get it signed, I ran to get it done. In my rush, I managed to forget both my iPod and my book in my apartment, which is never a good thing, because the one time you forget something is the one time you’ll need it. So, I arrive at Chapters, and there’s a good hour wait in the line before I could get an autograph. Fine, no problem. Until I start to overhear the girls behind me.

They were self-proclaimed book lovers, and managed to get onto the topic of Alcott’s Little Women. I was somewhat shocked when not one, but both (in unison at that!) stated they had never read the book but watched the movie, and reading the book and watching the movie are obviously the Exact Same Thing. (A book lover could actually think that?) When these two girls started raving about how Dan Brown is the be-all and end-all of fiction writers, though, I tried my hardest to tune them out.

Only to realize that the girls in front of me were Nicole Richie fangirls.

So when I say that this book was worth waiting through an hour of being surrounded by people raving about Dan Brown and Nicole Richie, I mean that this book was GOOD. And it was worth being able to talk with Pierce for a few seconds, and made me feel confident that I was getting a good book.

This is the first book in a trilogy that’s the prequel to the Alanna series (which is great for someone like me who hasn’t read any of her other books), and tells the story of Beka Cooper, a young girl who is on her way to becoming a Dog (cop-type-person) in the bad end of town. She has the ability to hear the ghosts of dead people, which helps her to solve two big cases.

I got caught up in the story from the very beginning. I lost much sleep over the weekend because I couldn’t put it down. The characters were all wonderful, the story was enchanting! And now I want to read more about Beka.