Here is my reading summary for the week ending 5th February 2012.
Each week I will give a short summary of the books I have finished and a bit of a blurb for each. I will also give you a sneak peek of all the books I am currently reading (as I never read just one book at a time) and I will also share any quotes that catch my eye.
A= Excellent Stuff
B= Really Good Read
C= Average
D= it was OK, a bit of a struggle to finish.
1. This week I have finished:
- Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood (Mystery) – B
The sixth in the series, Corinna Chapman, talented baker and reluctant investigator, starts off trying very hard to do nothing at all on her holidays. She is blackmailed by an old school mate into agreeing to do the baking for the film set of a new soap called ‘Kiss the Bride’ but how long it will last is anyone’s guess as serious sabotage is going on. Elsewhere in Melbourne a young woman is being bullied almost to the point of suicide by her employers and Daniel, Corinna’s love interest, has been hired to find some missing documents. You just know the two stories are going to collide and Corinna is going to be in the middle of it. Lots of subplots going on that add to the fun.
- Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola by Sean Dooley (Non-fiction) – C
Is a very funny A to Z guide to the secret world of bird-watching. It has all the stuff the real guides don’t tell you: how to look cool in binoculars, how not to get stuck with a bird bore, the correct way to throw up in a small boat out at sea and when it is acceptable to ‘pish’ in public.
- Courting Demons by Kerri Nelson (Paranormal Romance) – B
A quick and amusing read – Paisley comes home early after being made redundant to find her policeman husband, Paul, making love to a woman in their shower. Years ago Paisley use to practice witchcraft with her best friend Lily, until Lily died a horrible death. Paisley decides to cast a revenge spell and turns her husband into a rat in the process as she doesn’t have the right ingredients. Unfortunately she has broken all sort of magical rules and has inadvertently opened a portal into the dark side of the magical world. As punishment for opening the portal the Dark Order rules that Paisley has to serve as a judge in the demonic version of a small claims court. So now she has to keep her kids safe from nightly visitations from cranky demons, get the right spell to turn her husband back to human, and dodge a police investigation into her missing husband, and keep away from the Dark Order as the Light Order has plans for her. The book is obviously set up as the first in the series as it ends on a cliffhanger. I would read more to see what happens
- The Mystery of the Whistling Caves by Helen Moss (YA Mystery) – B
I first heard about this series book around the book blogs. They were all liked and described as if you liked the Enid Blyton books then you’ll love these. Well being a paid up member of the Famous Five Club in my time I got myself a copy, and I wasn’t disappointed. I found the first adventure staring Scott, Jack, Emily and the dog, Drift, to be fast paced, very well-written and the young characters realistic and fun to be with. Like Enid Blyton’s adventure stories there are ice-creams, picnics, caves, secret passages, danger and a good old-fashioned crime to solve. Unlike Enid Blyton these kids have laptops complete with search engines to help with the investigation. One scene I found very amusing was when they asked a fisherman if they could use his radio to call the police and he whipped out his mobile phone and told the kids to use that as was quicker. There are more adventures to follow and I will surely work my way through them.
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (YA Historical) – A
I love this series. – I spent Sunday afternoon inhaling life with Laura Ingalls and her family as pioneers in the USA in the 1800s – I read this series every few years and it never ceases to amaze me at how people lived then. Even though a lot of the stories are based on real events, the books are fiction.
2. My Current reads:
The books I am currently reading are:
Once a Jolly Swagman: True Stories from Singapore’s Death Row by Alan Shadrake – Singapore has one of the highest execution rates per capita in the world. The government says to keep crime rates down but Alan Shadrake investigates the claims that the death penalty is often applied with a hidden agenda – and that there is one rule for locals and another for foreigners.
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gouge – Winner of the 1946 Carnegie Medal for children’s literature. This is another classic Children’s book. It is a historical fantasy about thirteen-year-old Maria Merryweather who is sent to Moonacre Manor somewhere in the west of England after the death of her Father, accompanied by her governess Miss Heliotrope and dog Wiggins.
A Rose for the Anzac Boys by Jackie French – Set in 1915 in WWI Europe a young girl’s twin brother is listed as ‘missing’ in the devastating defeat of the Anzac forces at Gallipoli. She ends up in a canteen in France with two of her school friends caring for the endless flow of wounded soldiers returning from the front.
3. Quotes and links for the week
An interesting perspective on e-readers: http://tiny.cc/u4moo
What do the words used by book reviewers really mean?
A quote from page 1 of ‘Courting Demons’ by Kerri Nelson:
“…Paisley Barton was already having a bad day but things went from bad to worse after she turned her husband into a rat…”
The next is from the Preface of ‘Once a Jolly Hangman: True stories from Singapore’s Death Row’ by Alan Shadrake
"…I never imagined that I would one day go to Singapore, write a book about its revealed but much feared Chief Executioner and it’s justice system – and then end up in the dock myself…"
