I am a huge Patrick Ness fan! Let me put that out there at the start of this. I hugely admired his Chaos Walking Trilogy but was utterly blown away by the visceral emotion and mythic scope of A Monster Calls. There are few books that dig inside you as much as that one. This… Continue reading More Than This, Patrick Ness
Category: Young Adult YA
Half A King, Joe Abercrombie
I've been meaning to get round to reading Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy for a while but haven't managed to find the time recently. Work. Children. Babies. Goatee growing. You know: the things that take up your time. But with the summer holidays coinciding with a new book, Half A King, I thought I'd… Continue reading Half A King, Joe Abercrombie
Share this:
Summer Reading
With a week to go before the summer holidays, my reading list is starting to grow. Currently queued up on the ereader I have the following: These are crime thrillers penned, under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, by John Banville who wrote The Sea. I was particularly intrigued by The Black-Eyed Blonde as a new Raymond… Continue reading Summer Reading
Share this:
Roof Toppers, Katherine Rundell
It's that time of year again: the Carnegie Medal Shortlist is announced! Much joy! Genuine excitement! Much fretting over how to juggle reading the Shortlist with doing work, marking, planning ... and, this year, entertaining the baby! And Roof Toppers was a lovely way to start the Shortlist ... Which I finished today by reading… Continue reading Roof Toppers, Katherine Rundell
Share this:
Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett
You can't go wrong with Pratchett: he never fails to offer up decent stories with a sparkle of wit, a smattering of engaging characters and a bucketload of humanity - in all its various forms and species! And Raising Steam continues the pattern: here, Ankh-Morpork's journey towards modernity is quite literally driven by the arrival… Continue reading Raising Steam, Terry Pratchett
Share this:
Zom-B, Darren Shan
Miniature review due to absence of Internet and wifi. In fact, only now possible because phone can - sometimes - get some reception... I bought this for my son and wanted to cast my eye over it before he read it. He is only twelve and these are zombies. My ears still ring with his… Continue reading Zom-B, Darren Shan
Share this:
The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, Neil Gaiman
There is only really one word to describe this book. Perfect. Absolutely and undoubtedly, a perfect book. Powerful, moving, honest. A true book. A summary of the plot here will not serve to convey its power. Go out and read this book. In my own small way, however, here goes. The adult narrator returns to… Continue reading The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, Neil Gaiman
Share this:
Neil Gaiman and mothers
What is it with Neil Gaiman and mothers? I am in the midst of listening to the wonderful The Ocean at the End of the Lane - personally, I think that this book is going to be a clear favourite from Gaiman who is already one of my favourite authors! - read by Gaiman himself.… Continue reading Neil Gaiman and mothers
Share this:
Poll: Carnegie 2013
Share this:
Maggot Moon, Sally Gardner
When we got the books for the Carnegie Shadowing in school, there was a lot of excitement that this was a book about a dyslexic, in the voice of a dyslexic, written by a dyslexic. Obviously, in an educational environment, it was ... enticing. And, whilst that is all true, that is only minor part… Continue reading Maggot Moon, Sally Gardner
Share this:
Mortal Coil, Derek Landy
I have been enjoying this series. They were nothing exciting, nothing terribly original. But they were fun. They were light hearted. They were fast-paced and witty. But niggles and worries are starting to mar my enjoyment of them now. The worse elements are coming to the fore and the books are becoming increasingly dark, violent… Continue reading Mortal Coil, Derek Landy
Share this:
A Greyhound Of A Girl, Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle is a great writer. He wrote The Commitments which is a fabulous book and one of my favourite films of all time! He wrote Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha which is a fantastic evocation of a ten year old boy's childhood. Roddy Doyle does voices extremely well. He creates the voices of children… Continue reading A Greyhound Of A Girl, Roddy Doyle
Share this:
In Darkness, Nick Lake
In Darkness is Nick Lake's debut novel and an extraordinarily powerful one at that. Set in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the novel is literally set in darkness: our narrator, Shorty, is entombed in the remains of a collapsed hospital as rescuers lose hope of finding any survivors. In the darkness and rubble,… Continue reading In Darkness, Nick Lake
Share this:
Weight of Water, Sarah Crossan
This is an odd little gem of a book. It is a debut novel by Sarah Crossan written in verse - free verse - rather than prose; but deals with the realities of a very credible modern situation. As such, the disjunct between a contemporary situation and the language does parallel the disjunction and disconnection… Continue reading Weight of Water, Sarah Crossan
Share this:
Midwinterblood, Marcus Sedgwick
This is my second foray into Marcus Sedgwick's writing: White Crow, shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal a couple of years ago was the other. And this is by far superior, more beautiful, more powerful, more poignant. This book is shortlisted for the Cilip Carnegie 2013 and tells the tales of Eric and Merle. Tales. Tales… Continue reading Midwinterblood, Marcus Sedgwick
Share this:
Carnegie 2013 Shortlist
It's that time of year again: the Cilip Carnegie Medal Shortlist has been announced! It is genuinely one of the highlights of my year! I reserve the Easter holidays to reading as many as I possibly can of the list. I mean, we do shadow the Carnegie Medal in our school and I like to… Continue reading Carnegie 2013 Shortlist
Share this:
Playing With Fire, Derek Landy
Reading this immediately after the first in the series, Skulduggery Pleasant, is interesting: it highlights both some flaws and some developments. In terms of plot, there's a sense of déjà vu from the first book: a general from the previous war escapes from prison; he sets about acquiring an artefact to bring back ancient Gods,… Continue reading Playing With Fire, Derek Landy
Share this:
Skulduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy
I read Landy's The Faceless Ones - the third in the Skulduggery Pleasant series - and, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it: a smart and sassy heroine; an enigmatic and intriguing (possibly anti-) hero; a wide range of engaging characters. So I have taken the fact that the current seventh book, The Kingdom… Continue reading Skulduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy
Share this:
Mortal Engines, Philip Reeve; Railsea, China Miéville
Right, following on from seeing Philip Reeve in person - gabardine clad, animated and inspirational - and having had the question posed to me of how you could not read a book whose opening paragraph is “It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town… Continue reading Mortal Engines, Philip Reeve; Railsea, China Miéville
Share this:
Here Lies Arthur, Philip Reeve
For some reason, I cannot read this title without intuitively reading it in Latin hic iacit Arcturus. I attended a literacy conference this week where Philip Reeve was - for wont of a better phrase - the keynote speaker and I was lent this book as an introduction to his work as - to my… Continue reading Here Lies Arthur, Philip Reeve
Share this:
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Do a book club, they said! It'll be fun, they said! We'll call it Addiction to Fiction, they said! Okay, fair enough that's cool! It won't take much time, they said. Oh. Right. Of course not. So now, at 3:15 every Thursday a group of book hungry students descends on me. Seriously, it's fabulous: a… Continue reading The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Share this:
Carnegie Medal Winner, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
A MASSIVE congratulations to Patrick Ness for the historic achievement of winning the Carnegie two years running AND winning both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Prizes simultaneously. A Monster Calls is a truly exceptional book and a mighty winner! It is one of those books that EVERYONE should read! The story is moving, evocative, primal,… Continue reading Carnegie Medal Winner, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Share this:
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
I was lent this by a student at school - ironically as one of the main features in the book is that Charlie is lent books by his English teacher! It took a while to get around to actually opening it, until I ran out of time and had to read it before the kid… Continue reading The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
Share this:
My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece, Annabel Pitcher
I have read this solely because it is on the Carnegie 2012 Shortlist which I am leading a shadowing group for at my school. Something about the title, the rather pastel chintzy cover, the subject matter simply didn't appeal. At the risk of being judgmental it struck me as a rather girly book. All I… Continue reading My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece, Annabel Pitcher
Share this:
Trash, Andy Mulligan
I am in two minds over this book. And I think that reflects the fact that the book itself is trying to be two things at once. On the one hand this is a gritty realistic depiction of the most poor in a down trodden society. It is based on the trash piles that Mulligan… Continue reading Trash, Andy Mulligan
The Book Lovers' Sanctuary 
You must be logged in to post a comment.