Book Review: Unseen Academicals

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Publisher: Corgi

Category: Fantasy

Challenges: Terry Pratchett 2010 Challenge, R.I.P. V Challenge

Synopsis: How can one write a synopsis for a Terry Pratchett book? I I feel like it is trying to herd cats. So bare bones here we go: It is about finding out about yourself. And also about how to make the street brawling previously known as football into a more elegant game played by gentlemen like the wizards, also about pie. And love. And fashion. But in a very Ankh-Morpork way.

My Thoughts: I loved the message of love and acceptance in this book. Acceptance of others but above all acceptance of oneself. And also not judging a book by its cover. All this done with Pratchett’s usual humour and insight.

As I said way back when in my Terry Pratchett 2010 Challenge introductory post I wanted to read this book partially because of my life long love for football (or to use classic Pratchett Foot-the-ball). And I wasn’t disappointed. The explanation of the off-side rule was just brilliant! Not to mention the discussion of fans and who is really in charge of the game.

I will admit that I have not read these books in any sort of sequence (publishing or otherwise) but I had no problem following along in the sequence of things. The wizards, with the Archchancellor always in the lead, really need no explanation. Add to that the fact that the wizards are really background characters, and it matters little if you have read the previous books. The main characters in this book are (I believe) pretty new to the series, and if not that then expertly presented in this book. 

Although this book deals with football I don’t want the non-sports fans out there to shy away from it because of it. It is much more about other things. The football aspect is (and please excuse me, I’m about to put to use my behavioural psychology classes to use) much more about the dynamics of team work, about establishing new rules for old things and as I said in the introduction about finding and accepting yourself. All themes (and now the English teacher hat goes on) that are familiar to anyone, regardless of how you feel about sports.

Overall this was a fantastic book one I really recommend (even though Death only makes a cameo in it)!

Purchase Unseen Academicals from BookDepository

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Book Review: Pettson tältar (Pettson Goes Camping)

Pettson tältar (Pettson Goes Camping) by Sven Nordqvist

Publisher: Opal

Category: Children’s picture book

Synopsis: Findus (the cat in the green trousers in the picture) finds a tent in the attic and like all small children thinks camping sounds like a great idea. Along with fishing and climbing a mountain.

My Thoughts: Just as funny and sweet as always. The stories about Pettson and Findus are always predictable. Pettson invents something that doesn’t quite work, Findus does things the normal way. Neighbours think Pettson is insane for a)invention b)talking to his cat. Reader knows there is a perfectly true explanation for what occurs. But still every story seems fresh somehow.

Part of the freshness is absolutely the artwork which is perhaps the best part of the books for adults and children alike. Each page has its own illustrative artwork that goes with the story. At the same time within each illustration there is something else going on. Take for example the page where Pettson and Findus are camping, in it you can also see a small animal of undetermined kind fishing for ants. It is just a small picture on the side of the page, but finding these little extra pictures puts a whole new dimension on the reading experience. I would love to share some of the illustrations with you, but quite frankly copyright laws terrify me. There are some out on the net so if you are interested I suggest you google them. They are hilarious.

Findus the cat also acts like a small child. Always asking questions and getting into things. Slightly (okay, very) impatient but generally a good heart. Pettson, is an older man (gubbe in Swedish indicates an older man, close to or already retired) who invents things. Therefore he has a rather messy house with a workshop. He also has neighbours who thinks he is insane and most of the time he doesn’t care about this (except when they notice him doing the really weird stuff). This sounds like an odd setup but it really really works. And if you don’t believe me, many of the books are translated into English :D

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-Thon Mini-Challenge 1: Back in the Day Children’s Books

This first mini-challenge is hosted by Elizabeth from Miss Wisabus and she asks us to tell about her favourite children’s books. Those books we loved as a child, or discovered as an adult.

I’ve previously talked about my love for anything by Astrid Lindgren. You really can’t go wrong with any of her books. I also love love love Anne of Green Gabels. But I want to talk about one of the authors whom I plan on reading during these 24 hours: Sven Nordqvist. He writes these fantastically funny sweet stories with the most amazing illustrations. And many of his books have been translated into English. They are the kind of books that you can read over and over and over again and never grow tired of, both because the stories are sweet but mostly because the illustrations are incredibly funny and detailed! You see each page has a main illustration but within these illustrations you can find a million more pictures. It is really hard to describe but I really urge anyone to read his books.

I will be reading Pettson Goes Camping later today!

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

24-Hour Read-a-Thon: Start and Stats Post

 So here I sit with Tea Cup and Unseen Academicals ready to start my very first 24-Hour Read-a-Thon in Dewey’s memory.  Although I’ve been a blogger for two previous Read-a-Thons I wasn’t able to take part those times so this is my very first one. I am super excited!

I will be updating my stats for the day in this post but doing new posts for different mini-challenges as I take part in them.

Today’s Stats:

Books Read: 2

Pages Read: 396

Books Finished: 1

Cups of tea drunk: 2

My total Read-a-Thon time: 13 hours

Other things accomplished: Lunch and a catnap (I didn’t sleep well AT ALL last night and just couldn’t keep my eyes open, Dinner, hanging out with the parental units, cheering, SLEPT, ate breakfast

Mini-challenges participated in: 1

Update 3:

Books Read: 2

Pages Read: 115

Books Finished: 1

Cups of tea drunk: 2

My total Read-a-Thon time: 2 hours (I slept for over 9 hours)

Other things accomplished: SLEPT, ate breakfast

Mini-challenges participated in: 0

Update 2:

Books Read: 1

Pages Read: 143

Books Finished: 0

Cups of tea drunk: 2

My total Read-a-Thon time: 11 hours

Other things accomplished: Dinner, hanging out with the parental units, cheering

Mini-challenges participated in: 1

Update 1:

Books Read: 1

Pages Read: 142

Books Finished: 0

Cups of tea drunk: 2

My total Read-a-Thon time: 4 hours

Other things accomplished: Lunch and a catnap (I didn’t sleep well AT ALL last night and just couldn’t keep my eyes open

Mini-challenges participated in: 0

 

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Dewey Read-a-Thon List Post

So I have been going back and forth on whether or not I would be able to take part in the 24-hour read-a-thon. School is kicking my butt and my parents are home for the weekend before heading off on leg two of their mammoth holiday BUT thanks to a cancelled meeting this past week things are a little bit less stressful for me this weekend so I have decided to participate as much as possible. I will be starting a bit before the official time slot since I am in Europe and I can’t really stay up all night :D so I want to get some reading in while it is daytime here. I plan on starting at 11am CET. So on to my list of possible books!

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Om Gud (About God) by Jonas Gardell

Pettson tältar (Pettson Goes Camping) by Sven Nordqvist [picture book]

Och jag läste att det var omöjligt att leva lycklig förutan dig (And I read that it was impossible to live happily without you) by Mark Levengood

How To Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler

True Compass by Edward Kennedy [audio book]

To the Edge of the Sky by Anhua Gao

I might slip in some other books as well but these are the ones I am feeling today :D

I figure I will be updating once every two hours or so, this will cause a bit of a barrage of posts from me today and in the early part of tomorrow. Those of you not interested in these posts, feel absolutely free to just press that magic “mark all as read” button :D.

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Book Review: Haunting Bombay

Haunting Bombay by Shilpa Agarwal

Publisher: SoHo Publishing

Category: Horror

Challenges: POC Challenge, R.I.P. V Challenge, SAAC

Synopsis: Pinky lives with her grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins and the family servants in a bungalow in Bombay’s more affluent parts a decade after partition. The family appear normal on the outside but inside the walls of the bungalow secrets flourish, from the innocent candy hiding of one of the teenage boys to the dark secret that will forever change all of them.

My Thoughts: This was a deliciously creepy book. Seriously I was freaked out almost the whole time. In a totally good way.

The story is incredibly well told. It is full of suspense, and red herrings. I thought I had it all figured  out but then the story threw me yet another curve ball. I really hadn’t figured out the final twist when it came. I should have because there were hints of it but I really had no clue. I thought the solution would be quite different.

The Bombay after Partition is vividly portrayed. The differences in the different stratus of society is palpable. The language is so very beautiful. I loved the way Agarwal mixes English with Hindi in a way that makes the book feel authentic. It made me feel as if I was in the bungalow. The one criticism I have of this (and really the only one I have of the book in total) is the use of italics for the Hindi words. For me this was very distracting. I’m quite a visual reader, I see words as pictures and when I picture differs from the other on the page my eyes are drawn to it, the italicized words make me miss other words on the page, or at least stop my flow. It’s minor, and possibly wouldn’t cause the same problems for others.

The ghost story takes on the culture of the Indian subcontinent and allows the reader to experience a culture that might be unfamiliar (it certainly is for me).  Many of the techniques were common to other ghost stories but some were new to me.

This was another book for the R.I.P. V Challenge and although I don’t normally read spooky books this challenge has definitely gotten me interested in reading more. In addition this is my final book for the SAAC challenge which got me reading books from South Asia, something I will definitely be doing again, I also hope to be seeing more from this author!

This is definitely a book I would recommend (as a matter of fact I have every intention of lending it to my supervisor at school who showed an interest in it when she saw me reading it at lunch).

Purchase Haunting Bombay from BookDepository

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

TSS: September Wrap Up

September was on the face of it a very bad reading month for me. I only read 4 books. Except that doesn’t tell the true story of September because I actually read 7 books, but three of them were books that were written based on doctoral theses that I read for class or were textbooks, again for class. In addition to that I started student teaching, and being around people all day and having to think still leaves me absolutely brain dead with little ability to focus on a book. Then there was BBAW and Bok & Bibliotekmässan. I’ve just been super busy! Here is hoping that the next month will calm down.

Image credit

So what did I read (and actually review)

John Adams by David McCullough

Really enjoyed this book. I found it well written and well supported. For me it was also interesting to draw parallels between the current political discussions and the ones at the time and to see how little some things have changed. Highly recommend it.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman [audio]

This was my first book for the R.I.P. V Challenge and I absolutely loved it. I can’t tell you why I loved it, but I did. In addition I thought it was superbly narrated by Gaiman himself. 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling [audio]

This was both a re-read and a re-listen for me but it has been quite some time since last time and I really felt like I was falling in love with the series all over again.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Although I had some problems with the book, the further away from reading it the less these problems become. Overall it was a fantastic mystery and I am glad I could read it for the R.I.P. V Challenge. Another book I am happy to recommend.

During September I also wrote several posts for BBAW and for Banned Book Week.

So that was my September!

Copyright ©2010 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.