In my reading roundup for 2nd August I read Mark Lawrence’s King of Thorns, which I read on Kindle and listened to on Audible. As I mentioned last week, I’d been convinced to give this series another try despite not really being engaged in the first book, and I’m very glad I did. I think it helped that I both read and listened to it. James Clamp is competent as a narrator (check out a sample), but I suspect I perhaps missed a lot in the first book (which I only listened to on Audible) due to my dislike of the main character. Yes, Jorg is still a bloodthirsty, vengeful character, but he is maturing and is capable of thinking of others from time to time. The concept of the “memory box” and what I means for Jorg as well as the part it plays in the story is very well done. I gave King of Thorns four stars out of five. This is an improvement on the three stars I gave the first book Prince of Thorns. Perhaps Emperor of Thorns will make five stars. I also was fascinated by the references to our own world. I’m not…
After the frantic reading of BookTubeAThon 2013 I don’t have many books to discuss for this week’s reading roundup. The first book I read was Switched at Birth by “Kathryn Kennish”. The quotes are around the author’s name as this book was written in the universe of ABC Family’s drama Switched at Birth about two families who discover their daughters were involved in a hospital mixup. This show has been my recent guilty pleasure when not reading. Other than the character drama the merging of two families causes, I’ve found it a fascinating insight into the world of the deaf – one of the young women concerned is deaf. Many of the scenes involve, or are wholly in, American Sign Language. The writing and acting on the show are of excellent quality, so perhaps my expectations of the novelisation were too high. I found the novel uninteresting and lacking the depth that comes across in the show. It was written from the point of view of the hearing mother and barely touched on one of the most interesting aspects of the book, her learning about the deaf language and culture. I would suggest you skip the book and watch the show,…
For this week’s reading roundup I read Rick Riordan’s short story The Son of Sobek in which Percy Jackson from the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series meets Carter Kane of the Kane Chronicles. It was a fun read, if nothing majorly exciting. I was disappointed that the enhanced ebook version with narration from author Rick Riordan was not available for Canadians – indeed, I purchased it on Kobo. It also contains a sneak peak at the fourth book in the Heroes of Olympus series, House of Hades, which I am really looking forward to. I also read The Companions by R.A. Salvatore, which I received as a free copy from Netgalley. I plan to write a full review of it later, so I will save my thoughts for then. Suffice it to say, I wish I’d discovered R.A. Salvatore much sooner. The final book I read/listened to was The Lost Colony, the fifth in Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. This is a series I much prefer listening to on Audible, mainly because of Nathaniel Parker’s wonderful narration. His accent work and general excellent storytelling make this series a joy to listen to. Check out a sample. The Lost Colony…
For this week’s reading roundup I read something I don’t often read – a play. I was fortunate enough to catch via NT Theatre Live Helen Mirren’s wonderful performance as Her Majesty The Queen in Peter Morgan’s witty play about the weekly audiences between Queen and Prime Minister. It always wonderful to watch a well written play performed by skilled actors, and this was no exception. I enjoyed picking up on a few things I’d missed – like the explanation of why Peter Morgan opted to avoid a chronological narrative – he didn’t want to have the audience counting off the Prime Ministers on their fingers. It’s certainly worth checking out. Morgan also wrote such excellent screenplays as The Queen and Frost/Nixon. Pick it up on Kindle, Kobo or iTunes. I also recommend that you take a look at the NT Theatre Live’s programme of events – this is a truly excellent series of plays and I applaud the theatre’s commitment to bringing them to a wider audience. I am coming to the conclusion that I’m not really so fond of the grimdark genre. This week I read/listened to Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. There are some interesting characters –…
This week could more easily have been described as “listening roundup” as I’ve been listening more than reading – or rather I have been listening and reading along on my brand spanking new Kindle Fire. Here is what I have been reading and listening to this past week. I recently finished Siege and Storm in both Kindle and Audible by Leigh Bardugo, the followup to Shadow and Bone. To be honest I was rather disappointed in this book. I loved the Russian-style setting of the first book, and my enjoyment of this continued into the second book. However, I found the pacing of this second book rather slow. After a promising start, the story slows down to a crawl. It also annoys me when young protagonists suddenly find themselves in a leadership position with no training or experience, just because they have some unrelated power. On a positive side some new and very interesting characters were introduced, especially Sturmhond. Also the ending picked up again dramatically and I will certainly read the final book in the Grisha trilogy to see how it all ends. I listened to Graceling by Kristin Cashore from Audible which was marked as a full…