1. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Originally Published 1951. LT. Description: The night the sky broke out in mysterious green flashes, all but a few people on Earth were blinded. The world went mad. Ordinary folk became animals, turning on one another in terror and desperation. Bill Masen was one of a handful who struggled to preserve a shred of civilization amidst the chaos. But chaos soon became the least of mankind’s problems. Walking plants were appearing — plants that fed on the bodies of their human prey. The triffids had arrived, and it was up to Bill Masen to stop them!
2. Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements. Originally Published 2002. LT. Description: Teens, especially those not in the über-popular set, know all about feeling invisible. But what would happen if you actually did wake up invisible one day? Fifteen-year-old Bobby is faced with this curious predicament in Andrew Clements’s compelling novel Things Not Seen. Doing his best to adapt, Bobby informs his parents and grows more and more frustrated as they try to control his (unseen) life. Attempting to take matters in his own hands, he ventures out–naked–to the library, where he meets a blind girl who becomes a natural confidant.
3. Blindness by Jose Saramago. Originally Published 1995. LT. Description: A city is hit by an epidemic of ‘white blindness’ that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing.
4. Wake by Robert J. Sawyer. Originally Published 2009. LT. Description: Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math, and blind. When she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality she perceives the landscape of the World Wide Web-where she makes contact with a mysterious consciousness existing only in cyberspace.
5. The Cay by Theodore Taylor. Originally Published 1969. LT. Description: In 1942, 11-year-old Phillip Enright lives with his parents on the Dutch island of Curaçao, but when the war moves too close for comfort, his mother decides to travel with him back to the safety of Virginia. When their boat is torpedoed, however, Phillip is blinded and finds himself adrift on a life raft with an old black man and a cat. They eventually land on a deserted island. Phillip is suspicious of ‘the large Negro,’ but soon grows to trust–and ultimately love–the patient and generous Timothy.
6. The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny. Originally Published 1966. LT. Description: His name is Charles Render, and he is a psychoanalyst, and a mechanic of dreams. A Shaper. In a warm womb of metal, his patients dream their neuroses, while Render, intricately connected to their brains, dreams with them, makes delicate adjustments, and ultimately explains and heals. Her name is Eileen Shallot, a resident in psychiatry. She wants desperately to become a Shaper, though she has been blind from birth. Together, they will explore the depths of the human mind — and the terrors that lurk therein.
7. Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black. Originally Published 2003. LT. There wasn’t a description on LT, but from the reviews, it sounds like the person working on the case of the murder is blind.
8. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Diary of Bess Brennan by Barry Denenberg. Originally Published 2002. LT. Description: After Bess Brennan is blinded in a sledding accident, she must face a frightening, much-altered world. Confronted with a new set of obstacles, Bess manages to overcome her disabilities with help from her new friends at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA, where she also learns how to read Braille. Her twin sister, Elin, assists her with recording daily events in her diary and contributes entries of her own. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, Bess’ story will inspire all readers to be strong in the face of hardship.
9. The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer. LT. Description: Kai Meyer’s engaging fantasy portrays Venice as a city alive with wonder–stone lions pad with heavy paws on the canal banks and sometimes fly (as steeds for the Venetian Guard); the canals are full of mermaids with wide shark jaws, and the island city has been under siege by Egypt for 36 years. Only the power of The Flowing Queen, the mysterious spirit of the waters, has kept the city safe. But now the essence of the Queen has been stolen by traitors within the government, and the powers of Hell are offering a blood treaty. Two orphan girls, Merle, 14, and blind Junipa, 13, have become apprentices at the workshop of Arcimboldo, the maker of magic mirrors.
10. The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown. LT. Description: On her tenth birthday Alice meets two visitors to her quiet town: Theo, the African American grandson of her father’s best friend, and Kenneth, an artist who has come home to convalesce. Theo forms an instant bond with Alice that will indelibly change them both. The pair in turn befriend Kenneth, and decide to build a “rope walk” through the woods for him, allowing to make his way through the outdoor world he has always loved. But their good intentions lead to surprising consequences, and Alice soon learns how different the world of children and adults really are.

Have you read any books where blindness is a factor affecting one of the characters? What was it, and would you recommend it?

Do you like this feature? You should also check out Librarian’s Book Reviews’ Listless Monday and A Bookshelf Monstrosity’s Books By A Theme.

My dad has macular degeneration – basically what that means is that he’s lost sight in the middle of his eye. So he’s legally blind. He’s had it for many years now, and it’s a tough thing for him to have to deal with. He can’t work, he can’t drive, he has a hard time with reading. And while he never particularly enjoyed reading books, if he did there would be a very limited number of books that would be available to him in public library systems.

This problem is genetic – his sister also has macular degeneration, and there is a chance that my brother and I could develop it later in life. So when I talk about this passionately, it is because I know there is a very real possibility that I could be in my father’s position at some point in the future.

And that terrifies me.

The fact that I could not be able to do as much of a lot of the things I do right now and really take for granted. Wouldn’t be able to do graphic design work, wouldn’t be able to play on my computer, wouldn’t be able to watch my favourite movies, wouldn’t be able to drive, wouldn’t be able to read. Gah! Not able to read; could I even survive without my books?

Some libraries have a good selection of audio books, but not all. Some libraries are getting better at it. But for people who either don’t like audio books, or live in areas that don’t have libraries with a large selection of books for those who are blind or partially sighted, it makes it very difficult. The CNIB (Canadian National Institute of the Blind), though, has a library of books that they circulate to those who are blind or partially sighted – either audio books, books in braille, or other digital formats that can be read by computers. But they don’t have the funding they need to get a larger selection of books produced – they have been relying fully on charitable donations, but it’s just no longer enough. They have been asking the governments (federal, provincial, territorial) to help with the funding for getting more books. And at this point, Canada is the only G-8 country that does not publicly fund any library services for people who are blind.

The CNIB says,

Without such funding, people who rely on the CNIB Library will face a significant erosion of services – including increased wait times and fewer books – beginning this April. The library’s aging infrastructure will suffer from the lack of maintenance and much-needed upgrades. This will happen in an already untenable situation where just five per cent of written information ever makes it in to an accessible format – and most of what does is produced by CNIB.

It’s heartbreaking to think that people who are blind or visually impaired cannot get access to the same books and written information that the rest of the population gets. In fact,

it’s inappropriate to expect blind and partially sighted Canadians to rely on a charity to pay for a service that other Canadians enjoy as a basic right of citizenship. Furthermore, CNIB can no longer sustain the $10 million annual operating cost of the library without partnerships with all levels of government. Today, the CNIB Library is in jeopardy, and its services in danger of eroding. Partnerships are needed now to ensure the future sustainability of the library and avoid service reductions.

Right now, the CNIB library has more that 80,000 titles, but there are over 800,000 blind and partially sighted people in Canada. There are some areas in Canada that have committed to help with funding – Ontario, Alberta and the Northwest Territories – but it’s not enough. The funding that they are looking for will help increase the number of titles available, will help prevent an increase in wait time to get books, and will allow the technology used to in the library to be upgraded.

Please, if you are living in Canada, head over to the Right to Read website. Learn more about what’s going on, and please send a letter to your members of parliament to show your support of the campaign.

And so, here are my ten favourite steampunk books/series/graphic novels/etc.

1. Catherine Webb’s Horatio Lyle series. (LT)
2. Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels. (LT)
3. The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade. (LT)
4. The Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by DM Cornish. (LT)
5. Snow by Tracy Lynn. (LT)
6. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and accompanying book Lyra’s Oxford. (LT)
7. Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist manga. (LT)
8. H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. (LT)
9. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (LT)
10. Christopher Priest’s The Prestige. (LT)

I haven’t been reading nearly as much steampunk as I used to, but there are a lot of ones out there that I want to read eventually, including Gail Carriger’s Soulless and Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan. Not to mention the fact that the new Horatio Lyle book will be out this spring, and Cassandra Clare’s going to have The Infernal Devices trilogy, and that there will be more books in Arthur Slade’s The Hunchback Assignments universe. So much goodness to look forward to!

Do you like this feature? You should also check out Librarian’s Book Reviews’ Listless Monday and A Bookshelf Monstrosity’s Books By A Theme.

The Story

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock boy – he runs errands, delivers messages, does research, etc. for those who are willing to pay for his services. His jobs take him all over Victorian London, and it’s not unusual for him to run into all kinds of adventures. But when he meets with a wolf on the rooftops of London, even he is terrified.

When Barnaby’s friend Old Benjamin, and other people who won’t theoretically be missed, disappear Barnaby starts investigating what he soon learns is connected to the wolf that he had the run in with on the rooftops. When he is led to a doctor who has a magical concoction that cures the ailments of the poor, Barnaby discovers that he is drawn into something that could threaten his city, and is determined to stop it.

The Review

I haven’t had much time to read the past couple of weeks, so this weekend all I wanted was a book that I could quickly thrown myself into, that would grab my attention right from the beginning, and that I could get through in one or two sittings.

And when a book starts with the main character talking about his unwilling transformation into a werewolf, and an evil doctor looming up on the now-werewolf, WELL. It was exactly what I needed.

This was an adorable book. And if I’m saying that about a book about werewolves, then it’s really GOT to be adorable. (I really don’t like werewolves.) It had action and adventure, supernatural elements, and a couple of adorable cast members.

Unfortunately it WAS only a couple of adorable cast members – Barnaby was brilliant. He kept mentioning past adventures that he’s had, and it certainly made me wish that they had been gotten into a little bit more. And then there was this one little shop girl who was adorable… but that was it. The rest of the cast sort of faded into the background – even the evil doctor, unfortunately. Missing just a touch of menacing to make him feel threatening and memorable.

I liked how the authors managed to make Victorian London seem as as grimy as you would expect it to as well – that’s something I’ve definitely been paying more attention to lately.

But the highlight of the book for me was the illustration. Chris Riddell had some lovely illustrations in this book, and I definitely recommend looking into this book just for the illustrations.

The only major downfall (other than the character bit) was that it didn’t really have much of an impact on me. I finished the book a couple of hours ago, and it’s not a large book, but I’m still having a problem recalling a lot of what happened in the book. It’s just not sticking with me, unfortunately.

The Bottom Line

This was definitely a charming werewolf story with enough adventure to make it a quick and engaging read. At the same time, it wasn’t memorable enough to make me need to read the rest of the books in the series.

Other Reviews

The Well-Read Child, SherMeree’s Musings, Books and Other Thoughts. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

Melissa Anelli is the webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, the best Harry Potter news site on the web. She has been one of the central figures in the middle of the Harry Potter fandom and phenomenon for years, starting as your average fan to becoming webmistress of Leaky, and even having a chance to interview JKR. Harry, A History tells not only her journey through the HP fandom, but also talks about a lot of the different things that were around in fandom – from fanfiction and LJ communities and shipping wars, to fan conventions and wizard rock.

The Review

I can’t believe so much time has passed since the last HP book was released! Goodness time has gone by so quickly! I will fully admit that I wanted nothing to do with HP for the longest time. It wasn’t until some point between GoF and OotP that I actually even picked one of the books up – and I fell in love immediately. And then, to tide me over until the release of OotP, I discovered fandom.

I was only ever on the outskirts, but I still witnessed a lot of what was going on. And Harry, A History was like such a trip down memory lane. There was so much there that I remember discovering for the first time, and it was so wonderful to spend that time reminiscing. There was also so much that, surprisingly, I had completely forgotten about – like Laura Mallory’s attempts at getting the HP books banned (yes I remembered that people tried to ban them, but had forgotten all about Mallory herself).

Anyway! This book is partially Anelli’s memoir, but it is also so much more than that. Anelli goes into what HP means for her, where she was when certain events happened, how the HP fandom changed her life. But then it is also so much a commemorative look at the fandom. Hearing about Anelli’s growth in the HP fandom was only part of the charm of the book. HP fans will be able to see themselves in parts of this book – will be able to go, yeah! I remember that! I was a part of that! I was a part of this awesome phenomenon that took over the world and changed so many things! (Because yes, the HP phenomenon DID change things – it brought together all sorts of people who would never meet to do such amazing things. Like, who would ever think to have a rock show in a library before?)

So definitely a thoroughly enjoyable book, and now I am so wanting to go back and reread all of the HP books.

The Bottom Line

This is a must-read for people who were involved in the Harry Potter fandom – even if it was on the outskirts like I was. It’s a good tribute to everything we were a part of, and reminded me completely of why I loved both the series and the fandom. Highly recommended.

Other Reviews

Shooting Stars Mag, The Zen Leaf, A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, Sassymonkey Reads, Bart’s Bookshelf. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp were reprising their roles as Roger and Mark.

And have I mentioned how much I (a) love RENT and (b) adore both Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal? Because I really really really do. And yet I’ve never seen it live before. (I’ve seen the film of the last Broadway performance but that totally doesn’t count.) And as much as I love RENT, it totally wouldn’t be the same seeing it without Anthony Rapp or Adam Pascal in it, because it was their voices that I feel in love with in the roles of Mark and Roger. (Tangent: Rent is also kind of what made Rachel and I friends in university!)

So yay, when Rachel and I were at Word on the Street last year, and realized that they were going to be in the Broadway tour that would be going to Toronto, well! It was quite possibly one of the most exciting moments of my life.

And I’m still both totally fangirling over and totally speechless about last night’s show, so this is going to be not much more than gushing. Because that’s what I like to do best. And these are going to be my random thoughts about it:

• First of all: OMG RENT!
• Anthony Rapp was brilliant! Adam Pascal was brilliant! (I don’t care what Kat says, he was brilliant!)
• The whole freaking cast was phenomenal – not one weak performer in the group.
• The audience was insane – a lot of teens who were actually cheering out loud. On one hand, yay teens are enjoying theatre! On the other hand, it’s so strange to hear for cheering in the middle of a show.
• I liked the girl-who-was-playing-Mimi’s voice so much more than the one on the original cast recording
• I didn’t cry once! I expected to cry! I think I was just way too in awe of everything!
• Last night totally reminded me of all these songs on the soundtrack that I love love love!
• Also has reminded me of why I didn’t like certain things about the movie – the removal of some of the smaller songs, changing of some of the singing into talking, etc.
• AndOMGItotallysawAnthonyRappandAdamPascalinRENT! Insert little fangirlish squeal!

I feel like my life is now complete!

The Story

Deafening tells the story of Grawnia, a girl in a rural Canadian town at the beginning of the 20th century, who has lost her hearing due to scarlet fever. The story spans just over about fifteen years of her life, starting from when she is a very young girl learning how to communicate with people after losing her hearing, to going to school for the deaf, to falling in love and getting married, to living through WWI.

The Review

I don’t know what it is about books about Canadians in WWI, but I feel like I’ve read more of them in the past few years than I have of all other nationalities in all other wars combined. I’ve read some brilliant ones that I have/will come back to again and again, but you wouldn’t think it’s a subject matter I would enjoy reading about. It’s usually emotionally raw (in at least portions of it) and it tears you to bits, but it keeps drawing me back for more…

This book was definitely one of those about WWI that I will be coming back to again. I loved this book so very, very much.

It was a bit hard to get into at first. It’s a quiet novel, so felt a little bit slow-paced even though there was always something going on, whether it was Grawnia’s adjustment to being involved with the deaf community, or whether it’s about her husband Jim’s experiences in the war.

I’ve never read any books before where the main character is a deaf person, but I love how this gave me such an insight into the life of someone who would not be able to hear a thing. It was brilliant to get a glimpse into that. And even the way the book is narrated, it just seemed to embody that soundlessness – when you’re reading about Gawnia, you don’t hear the noise of anything else that is going on, it’s just focused exactly on what is important at that exact moment.

The Bottom Line

What an utterly beautiful book! It was a bit slow moving at times, but totally worth getting into. I want to say that this is one of the best books I’ve read this year, but seeing as I’ve now read five books this year… it doesn’t really express how much I loved it.

Other Reviews

In Spring it is the Dawn, Life is a Patchwork Quilt. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

Vincent Price and Chandler Brossard have put together a collection of the “best” short stories by Edgar Allan Poe – these stories include: The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Premature Burial, MS Found in a Bottle, A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, The Sphinx, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gold-Bug, The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether, The Man That Was Used Up, The Balloon-Hoax, A Descent into the Maelstrom, The Purloined Letter, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Cask of Amontillado.

The Review

I’ve never read Poe, and I’m trying to broaden my reading horizons. So, I thought this would be a good place for me to start – I mean, some of his best stories, and an introduction by Vincent Price? Those both have to mean something, right?

What I found was that I really liked some of the stories, and I really did not like others. In fact, it seemed that anything that was really short, I really enjoyed. Anything that was longer than 5 pages lost my attention before I got a quarter of the way through the story. I found the long ones were rambling and never seemed to anything resembling plot…

But the ones I liked, I quite liked. Especially The Masque of the Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and The Tell-Tale Heart.

The Masque of the Red Death actually reminded me of a faerie court in the way it was so extreme in it’s gaudiness, which was why I liked it. So over-the-top in the decadence, and the terror and horror of it. I liked how most of this story just pretty much described the setting where the story took place – typically I don’t like this, but in this case, I really did though am unsure why.

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar was about a man who was hypnotized as he was on the point of death, and after his body died, he would still respond to questions posed to him by the hypnotist. It was creepy – deliciously creepy. And enjoyable in the same sort of way as some of those old gothic novels where you KNOW what is happening could never actually happen, but is made to seem believable anyway.

And then The Tell-Tale Heart was so different than what I expected it to be. It’s one of those stories that everyone knows the basic premise about, but apparently there was a lot less focus on the beating of the heart in the actual story than I expected, and a lot more on the actual murder of the guy whose heart it is. Interesting how you think you know a story, but it’s really so different than what it really is.

The Bottom Line

I will be keeping this book, but mainly for those three stories mentioned above. The other ones I could really give or take. I’m happy that I’ve finally read some Poe, but I won’t go out of my way to read more.

Other Reviews

Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

1. Frozen Fire by Tim Bowler. Originally Published 2006. I first read this book about a year ago, and it embodies everything that winter is. It’s perfect for curling up with on a cold winter night.
2. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Originally Published 1950. I read at least one of the Narnia books every year – I always need to revisit the magical land every once in a while. And in the winter, it’s usually this particular book that I pick up. The whole always-winter-never-Christmas thing sometimes feels like what our winters here are like, byt he time Aril comes along and there’s still crazy amounts of snow on the ground.
3. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. Originally Published 1970. This book always reminds me of winter – probably because the big event that started out the characters on the paths to who they are was a snowball with a rock in the middle of it being thrown.
4. Battleaxe by Sara Douglass. Originally Published 1995. Actually, the whole trilogy screams winter. How could this not be a wintery story, what with Gorgrael’s ice castle, the Skraelings, the winter that is pressing further south every year… Eep.
5. The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin. Originally Published 1980. Definitely a wintery book! A book about dragons that just appear in the winter?
6. The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. Originally Published 1888. Originally appeared in the The Happy Prince and Other Tales collection, this story is about the perpetual winter that a giant goes through until he lets love into his life.
7. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Originally Published 1973. The winter cold definitely permeates through pages of this book – along with the feeling of evil that seems to accompany the winter.
8. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Originally Published 2007. The Summer and Winter courts of the fey are at war, and the Winter Court definitely brings to mind the cold of winter’s snow.
9. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Originally Published 1995. This book, more than the other two in the trilogy, really feel like winter to me. As Lyra travels further and further north with her polar bear friend, of course this is going to get more and more wintery. Obviously.
10. 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch. Originally Published 1986. I had to include this because it is one of my favourite Robert Munsch books. It’s a story about being cold in the middle of the night and going out in the cold in nothing but your jim jams, and have I mentioned that this is one of my favourite Munsch stories?

Do you have any books that scream “winter” to you?

The Story

It is 1808, and the middle of the Napoleonic Wars. First Lieutenant Heironymus Bonaventure serves on the HMS Fortitude. After a run-in with a Spanish frigate and a horrendous storm, the Fortitude finds an island paradise repair serious damage to their ship. When they come across a couple of members of the Spanish crew, only to learn of a madness that has effected the remainder of the Spanish crew on a neighbouring island. But the native people of this island paradise warn only of how the island is forbidden, and is the home of fire and death.

The Review

Hmm. This wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped it was going to be.

I was hoping for something that would cross Horatio Hornblower with fantasy. It was more like Robinson Crusoe with fantasy elements (and a lot more characters stranded on the island).

The characters lacked depth, there was nothing that made me care about any of them. And their relationships didn’t feel as developed as they should have been seeing as the characters had been stuck on a ship together for months on end with each other.

Then there was the ending, which was a bit anticlimactic and rushed. I expected more than the group of crew and islanders seeing the monsters, attempting to fight them for a little bit and then retreating. Especially for the islanders – this is supposed to be a trial where they can show their courage and their worth, and yet they’re going to have to live with knowing that they ran away from the danger – it didn’t feel consistent with who they were at all.

The one bright spot in the book was Giles Dulac, the man who teaches Bonaventure how to fence. I blame this on Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword, which has made me have a bit of love for characters who fight with swords. Sadly, he was only really around for four chapters, all of which were looks back into Bonaventure’s past. And I really wish we had explored Dulac more – there was so much more to him, including his relationship with a friend from army days. Hmm.

The Bottom Line

Overall, it was alright, but nothing super-special. It had the potential to be more than it was, but unfortunately, for me, it fell a little flat.

Other Reviews

Neth Space, Fantasy Book Critic. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.