Some times it’s good to have a book that will be just exactly what you are looking for. No big surprises, just comfort in reliability and happy endings. This book fit that perfectly when I needed it to.
Would I recommend it? It’s not high class literature, but if you are, say, sick in bed and can barely focus and just need to get your mind on something else, it’s just about perfect.
First off I’d like to clarify that I am talking the Olivia books.
The books by Ian Falconer.
The books where the first of them has that nice shiny silver Caldecott medal on it.
THOSE Olivia books.
(I have no comment on all other shows videos and books of a pig with the same name.)
The books where the face of the Olivia’s mother is one of the best parts.
From Olivia and The Missing Toy.
Those Olivia books are my favorite picture books, and I collected most of them after I had children.
Olivia goes to Venice came out about a year ago and I liked it but not so much that I had to have it. This year when I saw the newest title was Olivia and the Fairy Princess I rolled my eyes, thought the author was losing it but that Ivy would love it and brought it home from the library.
But, then I read it and was oh so pleasantly surprised.
Olivia, she’s got a problem with all the pink princesses.
Olivia, I had no idea you could get any cooler but with the line “If everyone’s a princess, then princesses aren’t special anymore!” you became my all time favorite pig.
Ivy who has joined the hordes of girls (and pigs) who love pink princesses was unimpressed but I, I have a new favorite children’s book!
Start with Outlander and then keep going.
I’ve been re-reading them in between other books since Jane has been born and I’m on my 6th book of hers in a month.
I haven’t yet had the words “dinna fash” or “you’ll ken” come out of my mouth yet but it’s a good thing I’ve only got one book left or I’d be yelling “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” next time I burn dinner.
Would I recommend them? Having just stared blankly at the computer screen for a many minitues I have no tidy way to sum up the books nor why exactly I’d recommend them.
I think I’m in a Jamie and Claire induced stuper… and now I have to go read what happens next – even though I’ve read this one twice before.
I like epic fantasy novels and series. I like knowing what happens next… and next… and next. The trouble with this is that authors of epic fantasy’s usually don’t crank out their books one right after another so I’m required to remember what happens in a book for long stretches of time… possibly years. Usually this is where John comes in. I screen books and give him ones I think he’ll like and he remembers everything he reads and can remind me of all the little (and sometimes gigantic) details I have forgotten. Unfortunately after he read A Game of Thrones and possibly the next one or so in this series he quit. He quit reading them because the author makes you care about his characters and then he kills them. Sadly it’s true, the chapters switch character viewpoints among a huge cast and Martin has an uncanny ability to turn you from indifferent, to actively rooting for them right before he offs them.
In any case I couldn’t count on John to remind me what happened in the last books, which was a problem, because this books timeline runs along side the book before (A Feast For Crows) so I actually was trying to remember what happened two books (A Storm of Swords) ago. I read those books in 2004 and 2006 respectively. I can’t remember a book I read last week, asking me to not only remember back to a time before children but to also recall what I read then – not happening.
For the first quarter of the book I was confused, really confused. I recognized names, some events were familiar, I had a couple of “OH YEAH he killed that king” sort of moments but it was pretty bad. By the time I reached the half way point I was mildly confused but had come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t setting this book down, re-reading the last two and coming back to it. Mild confusion and I were getting along fine. The third quarter of the book I was well enough in that most of my confusion was behind me and I was caught up in the story again. Then last quarter arrived and he started killing off all the characters I cared about, threw a few new old ones that I was supposed to remember into the mix and ended it with me wanting to know what happens next.
Would I recommend it? The series isn’t for anyone… the term epic should not be taken lightly… This was a 1,000 page tome and while lots of people died nothing got resolved and it’s the fifth book in the series. On the other hand it’s a pretty darn good story, from what I can remember… If you are brave enough to take them on start with A Game of Thrones.
It appears I read the first book in this series before I started writing about the books I was reading, which is annoying to me, and possibly to you to. Or maybe it’s just a bit of my need-to-have-some-part-of-my-life-in-order-so-I-choose-odd-small-things issue coming though and no one is annoyed other than me.
Regardless of who is or is not annoyed by this out of order book review I’ll attempt to put my own issues aside and carry on.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman was a recommendation from Pat Rothfuss’s blog. And since we should all have read at least The Name of The Wind by now we know he is a super author, and we should probably at least check out his recommendations right?
Right.
If you would like to do so yourself here is his link http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2009/08/things-i-like-magicians-and-faeries-of/
Personally I’d call The Magicians something of a Harry Potter meets Narnia in an adult sort of way.
(And by that oh best beloved I mean we’ve added, sarcasm, sex, drugs, alcohol, death and other assorted nasties)
I recall it being a fairly wonderful, if slightly startling book, so therefore I found the second in the series (see large title above) and brought it home. I then proceeded to read this book in a much shorter time frame than I should have which resulted in a much shorter night sleep than was really prudent.
And it was worth it.
Would I recommend it? Why yes, yes I would, thanks for asking.
And on a slightly different but still sort of related subject I feel compelled to share this flow chart of NPR’s top 100 science fiction and fantasy books (also recommended by Pat Rothfuss) because it’s funny if you’ve read enough of them to be dorky enough to get the jokes and possibly helpful in finding a new book to read if you haven’t.
My copy of this book is a discard from our library and it confuses me because on the spine there is a little sticker that says “Mystery” complete with ghost and candle.
Is it because mystery and history rhyme and they mixed up the stickers?
Or if I was still a young adult and hadn’t read this book a pile of times would there be a mystery to solve?
I can’t figure it out, but if I ignore the sticker I like the rest of the book mystery or not. I think I read this first as a Battle of the Books book and it’s somehow found it’s way onto my book shelf.
Would I recommend it? Yes, while I enjoy it now I loved it when I was younger.
After finally finishing this book my only overwhelming feeling is…
HA!
Perhaps final conquest isn’t the best of reviews…
Parts of the book I found completely fascinating and surprisingly, for lack of a better term, relevant. I’d have thought that a book about the first Europeans that may have made it to North America (predating the Norse) and the why’s and hows of how they got here would be information that would be filed away in my brain as interesting but mostly useless and ultimately forgotten. As it has turned out I’ve found relate-able material in all sorts of areas since I started reading it. After all when you span Scandinavia to Newfoundland from 5000 bc to the 1400′s that’s a lot of history and a lot land covered, I guess it’s bound to come up somewhere!
On the down side the book has a tendency to be a bit of a dry history book at times. Contrasting this was a fictional account following a group of people, the Farfarers, as Mowat takes you through the times. I expected this part to be much better than it was, and it turned out that that was my least favorite part of the book. As more of a glimpse of what life was like than an actual story line I found it just to be annoying. Also it had a tendency to be ridiculously graphically violent for no apparent reason. I never need to read descriptions about heads being chopped in two, ever.
Would I recommend it? Not for the average evening read but if you’ve any interest in this part of history or even seafaring history in general, it’s an interesting worthwhile read. However I would not recommend you leave it in your child’s room and read it while nursing her to sleep, this will cause it to be read in snippets over a ridiculously long period of time so that when you finish it all you’ll have to say is…
HA!
Better, much better.
I still think that there are too many characters being followed, I still wasn’t as impressed as I was with her others that I have read but I liked it. I liked it in a couldn’t put it down lost hours of sleep over it kind of liked it. I’d be all sleepy and planning on just reading one chapter then suddenly I’d be sucked into sailing and dragons and battles and I’d be wide awake and reading far too long into the night. Now the fact that the first book, was lame makes sense, but that was a big book of lameness to make it through to get to this one!
Would I recommend it? Yes, but of course then you have to read the first two (here and here) or this wouldn’t make sense and I didn’t like those near as much. So as for the whole trilogy I’d say it was good, not great, but good. I think my full recommendation is to start with Assassins Apprentice and read those, then if you liked theme come back to these. Plus technically these fall between the Farseer Trilogy and the Tawny Man Trilogy so you should read them first anyway, but you could skip these three altogether and still understand everything in the Tawny Man books.
Whew, apparently I’ve got nothing succient in me about this book… check out the next review I’m not confused on my feelings coming up for that one!
Second in The Liveship Traders series I liked this book much better than the first.
Is it because the character set up was done in the first book and now they are actually growing?
Because now I’m hooked in the plot?
Because I can see more and more how this connects to the Tawny Man Trilogy?
Because I love a good nautical adventure?
I have no idea, but I’m requesting the next one from the library tonight.
Would I recommend it? No, I can’t recommend the second if I didn’t like the first even if it was better. Perhaps the third will swing my vote back to a yes we’ll have to see…
While we are on the subject of things that I don’t love I have a question.
Who is in charge of cover art for books?
Don’t they ever worry about the artists actually reading what they attempt to portray? This isn’t the worst example of an inaccurate cover ever, something like this picture sort of happened. Characters, ships and sea serpents are described to sort of look like that… seriously, I find it to be totally annoying.
I was so disappointed in this book.
I probably should have taken a breather between finishing the Tawny Man series (also by Robin Hobb) before starting a new one, but I was on a roll and I didn’t.
I really wish I had.
I loved The Farseer Trilogy and The Tawny Man Trilogy they were awesome, for reasons I have already spoken of here, here and here. This book was not as good, reading it right after Fool’s Fate made it seem even worse. Too many view points, too cliche of characters, and an unsurprising plot. Near the end things were looking up I’ll read the next one and cross my fingers it gets better but as for this one…
Would I recommend it? No. I hope it was a fluke and the writing that so impressed me with her other books returns in the second of this series.
