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Ohh boy. Long time me no writey. Me no know write no more...
Today's book review pays tribute to one of this year's HSC English standard text, that much hated and despised Lionheart by Jesse Martin.
Lionheart by Jesse Martin
And I must say, I hated this book too with a passion last year, when I was analysing it for the Physical Journeys section in English Advanced.
But I thought that I might give it another chance, you know, just reading it without analysing everything that's happened to Jesse, and I've found that I enjoyed reading it more this way.
Sort of tells you why a lot of people are turned off from books: sometimes, the English subject ruins it.
Anyway, this is a non-fiction book about young, 16 year old Australian Jesse Martin, and we follow his journey all the from when he was a little baby (yes, ladies and gentlemen, complete with naked pictures of him as a lad and other personal matters that, in my opinion, should have been left private) all the way to when he finished his goal of being the youngest person to "sail solo, nonstop, and unassisted". But what draws you into the story is the way Martin writes: it's so personal, intimate, and I daresay, so colloquial that it sounds like the whole book is a letter addressed to you, dear reader.
The things I don't like is that, sometimes, he describes things too much, mentions things a little too much, and gives out details of his trip a little too much (Who wants to know him walking around his boat, oh pardon, YACHT, stark naked for the most of his journey? Not I.) Too much. Too much. Too much. No matter how much I enjoyed the book, I still found it too much of everything. I'd hate to watch Lionheart: The Video. Good thing my English teacher spared us that fate.
Nonetheless, it actually makes a good read. More for blokes than for gals, as most voyage books are.
I rate this novel:
7/10
**book cover from Powell's Books
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September 29th 2006 00:01
My sisters call me nipponiac, because I love anything Japanese. Heck, I'm even dishing out the five years of my uni life just studying about everything and anything in the land of the rising sun.
That's why I was happy to find this novel worthy of reading.
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
And, I can say that I jumped into the bandwagon before everyone else in the world did. This is book one of the Otori Trilogy, as told by the main characters Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede. The story is gripping right from the very beginning, and I have virtually no bad things to say about it.
Set in feudal Japan, we mostly follow Takeo's life as he grows up as a "weak", little boy of a religious, forbidden sect called the Hidden (We get hints of what this religion is, but we wouldn't be told until the last few chapters of book 3). After witnessing his whole village massacred, and being the sole survivor of it all, he is adopted by a powerful Lord Otori Shigeru. He is then trained in the ways of some form of a super samurai x ninja (we also learn many of his life's secrets, but we're also left with a lot of holes to be filled by the second and third books).
If I say anything more, I would be ruining the little surprises and twists in the story, and we don't want that, do we? This is one of those books that are so compact in plot and character that anything else will unravel that delicious mystery Lian Hearn has managed to entwine. All I can say is, this series oh so addictive and I hope that if they ever make a film out of this series, they better do the books some justice.
I promise you, dear readers, that you won't be disappointed when you read this. Even my chick-literature-addicted sister loved it.
I rate this novel:
10/10
** Image taken from http://www.booksdirect.com.au
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September 17th 2006 05:53
The Silver Road - Grace Dugan
The Silver Road is an alright story. I didn't have high expectations for it but it turned out to be an OK story with enough twists to keep the reader amused.
The Silver Road follows the lives of Zuven, a 16 year old foundling with a mysterious past, Yelala (the character that stands out most) a noblewoman who has dedicated her life as a soldier, and Haga, eldest son of a baron and has dedicated his life to rebellion. Together their lives intertwine as they try to kick evil old king off the throne.
I'll let you in to a little spoiler: The three of them will never succeed in usurping the king. The king will be kicked off by somebody else, and will be replaced by another evil old king before these three finally succeeds what they were planning to do.
You know what's lacking in this story? A good relationship between the characters instead of just a "meh" kind of thing between them. The only characters who actually gets a good relationship are Yelala and Flite, and you'll only get it in Chapter 50 of the overall 59 chapters of the book. The other two characters, Zuven and Haga, are a little hostile and sounded to me like they were just using each other.
Another thing is establishing a sort of reader-character relationship. I found the two main characters (Zuven and Haga) quite unlikeable (Like how I found myself disliking Fanny Price of Mansfield Park). One way to establish this relationship is to maybe invite the readers to decipher messages, add mysteries and intrigue, etc.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this novel. Being 6 years in the making, Dugal certainly did a great job on it. It's not the same as other fantasy books out there. The plot here is very compact, and anything "fantastical" is kept to a minimum. This book reminds me of Lian Hearn's The Otori Trilogy in terms of characters, setting, and plot.
This novel can be bought from bookstores everywhere for $20 ($19.95 at Dymocks).
I rate this novel:
8/10
//Book cover from http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/2006/08/review-silver-road-by-grace-dugan.html Shared on
September 13th 2006 04:57
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a book review, nor book gossip, nor any news about new books.
This is a straight out blog for every book consumer out there. Listen closely and listen well
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Homeword '06, the Western Sydney Writers' Festival, kicks off at Parramatta Town Hall in Church St starting from today, 9 September.
This is your chance, oh aspiring and realised writers, to come and join workshops galore. Each workshop costs $5 to attend. Who knows, you might even see your favourite Orble blogger there (In the FLESH, ladies and gentlemen) --if they come, that is
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I'm sure that there are a lot of authors out there, published or not, who would want their pieces of magnificence etc to be recognised. Getting your stories published is hard enough already (remember that episode on Inspector Rex about the author turned murderer)... but winning an award? Sounds pretty tough, hmm? But according to this site, "Good books are often judged by the prizes they win. "
Enough about that. Here I've compiled a collection of awards that you, oh mighty author, can join. An award is an award is an award, oui mon ami
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Picture from www.101lifestyle.com
A fictional book supposedly based on the said blonde actress, and is said to have bitten and will continue to bite her behind-- hard.
According to New York Daily News, Aniston's ex-flatmate, fellow actress Nancy Balbirer, wrote a book called The Underminer: Or, the Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life. It is supposedly about a girl named "Jane" who landed a sitcom about friends living together in a place called the Village, presumably New York's West Village
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Image from www.books.boomerangbooks.com
Books like these always remind me of Desperate Housewives, of which I seriously presume was the inspiration. Another spin-off that comes to mind is the book Desperate Husbands by Richard Glover. This book is pretty funny, but sometimes it's not. Maybe it's just the blokey jokes that us females don't really get. Or maybe it's just me. Nevertheless, I'll review Desperate Husbands in another day.
How to Kill Your Husbands (HTKYH in short) by Kathy Lette is, if not feminist in flavour, then a joke. This is a pretty funny book, and of course Kathy Lette's one-liners should not -- nay, never be taken seriously
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Image from www.powells.com
Varekai is one of those shows that is money well worth spent. Watching it was such a delightful, edge of your seat experience that you never seem to want leave that wonderful seat under Le Grand Chapiteau.
Whether you've seen the show or not, you can take a little piece of Varekai with you home through Cirque du Soleil merchandise and, most delightfully, a book that captures those magical feats the acrobats do that leaves your mouth hanging open and wanting more long after the show had finished
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Image from www.fantasticfiction.co.uk
If there is any great children's fantasy series around, it's definitely this series. I would make a review for each of the 15 books in the series, but being the lazy butt that I am I'll just make a collective review. Who knows, when I'm feeling productive I'll make the individual reviews. =)
There are three main characters: Lief, son of a blacksmith, Barda, a beggar, and Jasmine, a wild girl from a place called "Forests of Silence". An unusual bunch, to begin with, because most fantasy books will not include guards-turned-beggars and wild girls in the main plot. But there you go. That's another thing that's appealing in this series: nothing is what it seems. Even I was sometimes taken by surprise
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Comment by Victoria
on Fantasy and Science-Fiction resources