I am writing this on the Sunday evening of a weekend during which the movie “Insidious: Chapter 2″ made $41 million dollars at the box office. Tomorrow evening “Sleepy Hollow” premieres on Fox and CBS airs the finale of the first season of “Under the Dome”. “The Walking Dead” is on the cover of this [...]
All in the Family
By on August 28, 2013
Today we look at three historical novels about very strange families. Taking things chronologically, first up is Sarah Dunant’s Blood & Beauty, about the very real, and very twisted Borgias of Renaissance Italy. Wikipedia lists among their crimes “adultery, simony, theft, bribery, and murder (especially by arsenic poisoning).” I quite like that parenthetical at the [...]
Pick of the Day: The Fire Chronicle: The Books of Beginning, Bk. 2 (Audiobook)
By on January 24, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Fire Chronicle: The Books of Beginning, Book 2. By John Stephens. 10 CDs. 12:22 hrs. Prod. by Listening Library. Dist. by Listening Library/Books on Tape. 2012. ISBN 978-0-307-87982-0. $37.
Gr 4-7–In The Emerald Atlas (2011), the first book in John Stephens’s series, we met Kate, Michael, and Emma who were searching for their missing parents and got caught up in a magical adventure that nearly turned deadly, tested their family bonds, and gained them the first Book. In this second [...]
Pick of the Day: The City of Ember: The Graphic Novel
By on November 14, 2012 Leave a Comment
DUPRAU, Jeanne. The City of Ember: The Graphic Novel. adapted by Dallas Middaugh. illus. by Niklas Asker. 144p. Random. 2012. Tr $18.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86821-4; PLB $21.99. ISBN 978-0-375-96821-1; pap. $9.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86793-4; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-307-97910-0. LC 2011051619.
Gr 5-8–Lina and Doon have spent their entire lives surrounded by darkness. Lina is an optimist and a dreamer who just knows there is something beyond the city of her birth. Doon is much more practical. He knows that if he can [...]
