Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

/ justbookreading / 4 Comments

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

By J.K. Rowling

Scholastic

ISBN: 0-439-06486-4

5 stars

Ah, the second book in my Harry Potter re-read this summer and what a wonderful story this one is.  OK, I’ll probably say that about all of them so get over it now.  Before I forget to mention it, there will be a number of spoilers in this one so stop reading now if you prefer not to know.

The short re-cap of this installment — Harry joins Ron and Hermione for their second year at Hogwarts.  Harry finds out he’s a parseltongue (he can talk to snakes) and starts to hear voices, student turn up petrified, and the Chamber of Secrets is rumored to have been opened by the heir of Slytherin.

Flying cars, the Whomping Willow, and Dobby the house elf.  Dobby is probably one of my favorite characters, just below Ginny Weasley.  When he died in book seven, I was so upset, maybe even more upset than when Dumbledore died because I wasn’t expecting it.  He’s amusing, sort of pathetic, and shows you just how awful the Malfoy’s are as a family.  It’s not just Draco, it’s all of them.  We learn more about Hagrid and we get to see how nasty some of the creatures are that he loves so dearly.  I’m with Ron all that way on this one; I prefer the dragon to the gargantuan sized spiders.  They are way too creepy, crawly, and there is something very disturbing about all those all those eyes looking back at you.  Ginny joins the rest of the Weasley clan at school in year two and I love her shyness and the crush she has on Harry.  It’s so cute.  Still hating Snape as I expected to.  Nasty, mean, greasy, undermining — I have nothing nice to say about him and that will not be changing.  I know what’s coming and re-reading makes me dislike him ever more than ever.  The Weasley twins set off more fireworks in this one and it’s nice to see their future in humor retail emerging.  Such talent these two boys have for destruction but it’s all in good fun and someone has to be the comic relief.

Details, details, details.  Rowling does such a great job of putting so many tiny hints in these books.  First, the idea that Harry can talk to snakes appears in the Sorcerer’s Stone when he unleashes the snake at the zoo and now it’s explained even more here by Dumbledore when he tells Harry that part of Voldermort’s power was transferred to Harry when he attacked him.  What I like even more is that it’s left out there for us to wonder what will happen with that bit of information later.  I also like the mention of werewolves in this one preparing us for a new professor in book three which I will tell you now is my favorite.  🙂

Not having read these early books in such a long time makes me very happy to be doing so now.  They are a treat to read and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.  I can easily classify this series as a comfort read.

Teaser Tuesdays

/ justbookreading / 8 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

Today I’m starting Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch.

“My brother Vernon went on ahead.  I woke up and felt for him but the bed was dry and my brother Creed was already up.  He had his overalls on and he was telling me that I had to get up too because it was after four-thirty and the cows wouldn’t wait.” (3)

What are you teasing us with this week?

The Queen of Attolia

/ justbookreading / 6 Comments

The Queen of Attolia

By Megan Whalen Turner

Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 978-0-06-084182-9

4 stars

I read The Thief, the first book in Whalen Turner’s series, back in March of this year.  I liked it but wasn’t blown away at the start.  The more I thought of it though, the more I liked it which was what make me want to read The Queen of Attolia.

Eugenides, the Queen of Eddis’s royal thief, is caught once more, this time by the queen of Attolia.  Captured sneaking out of her castle, he’s thrown in prison, and as punishment, she cuts off his hand and returns him back to his queen.  Thrown into a depressive state over the loss of his hand, and essentially his livelihood, he hides from everyone and everything.  When he finally manages to pull himself out of his stupor, he finds his country at war with Attolia, and several other neighboring countries threatening war, and he feels he must finds a way to bring peace.

Megan Whalen Turner is very good at weaving an intricate tale that allows you get lulled into a story only to be taken aback by a small confession from a character.  Yes, it was probably something I should have seen coming, but I was content to ride this one out waiting patiently to see how it would end, which is very odd for me.  To be honest, there’s not a lot of action in this book even with the wars going on.  There’s a lot of strategy talk though but there’s something interesting about it that I when I got to the end I wanted to pick up The King of Attolia right away.  While it may not be a huge cliff hanger at the end, it’s enough that you want to know how things will be working out.

What I really enjoy about these books are the stories within the story.  Characters tell tales, mostly about their gods and goddesses, but I find these fables so wonderful.  It provides great background for some of the actions of the main characters and you do see the stories mirroring each other in some places.  Whalen Turner brings a nice balance to the religious aspect and while it isn’t overt, it’s interesting to see how each character deals with their beliefs.  I don’t usually care for religion in my fiction but it’s subtle and so well blended that it feels more a part of the story rather than an add on.

I’m reading The King of Attolia and will be hoping that my library has A Conspiracy of Kings, the fourth book in the series.

The Sunday Salon – A Short Post

/ justbookreading / 6 Comments

This is going to be a short post today.  Thanks to work and life, I didn’t get much reading in last week. I read two books and they were rather short ones at that.  I finally got around to reading Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones which was lovely and I’m sorry I waited so long to read it. I also read The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer which wasn’t bad either.  The Thieves of Manhattan is about the publishing industry and was a tart, little book full of sarcastic and biting remarks about the industry which I found quite entertaining.  I used to work for the publishing industry’s lobbying group and some of the comments/insights from the book were even funnier having met and worked with some people in publishing.

The King of Attolia which I’m reading now is moving along rather slow but that has more to do with me being tired than the book itself.  If I can, I plan to steal a few hours later today.  Maybe after a nap…

I made an attempt to update my challenge page recently and found I’ve completed or have come very close to completing most of the challenges except one – A Tournament of Reading.  I put several history books on hold at the library last week with the intention of reading them for the challenge so we’ll see how that goes in the next few weeks.  I wasn’t able to find everything I had on my list but I found a few that look good so I’m going with it.

Since I have a bit of work to do and still want to get some reading in later, I’m calling it.  Happy Sunday.  Next week I plan to have more to share.  🙂

Friday Finds – Fantasy and Strange Roman Habits

/ justbookreading / 3 Comments

This week, two of my favorite things, a fantasy book and strange facts about Roman life.  And let’s begin…

The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett.  This is the follow-up to The Magicians & Mrs. Quent which I read earlier this year.  While I thought parts of The Magicians & Mrs. Quent were a little disconnected, I liked the characters and the world enough to want to read more.  This one comes out on September 28th.  Description from Barnes & Noble: Her courage saved the country of Altania and earned the love of a hero of the realm. Now sensible Ivy Quent wants only to turn her father’s sprawling, mysterious house into a proper home. But soon she is swept into fashionable society’s highest circles of power—a world that is vital to her family’s future but replete with perilous temptations.  Yet far greater danger lies beyond the city’s glittering ballrooms—and Ivy must race to unlock the secrets that lie within the old house on Durrow Street before outlaw magicians and an ancient ravening force plunge Altania into darkness forever.

Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire by J.C. McKeown.  I love anything about Roman history so this one had to go on the list.  Description from Barnes & Noble: Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans.

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Leave a comment here with a link to your own finds, or share your answers at Should Be Reading. Happy Friday.

My Favorite Reads – The Wordy Shipmates

/ justbookreading / 1 Comment

Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.

From the inside cover: To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means — and what it should mean.  What was this great political enterprise all about?  Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation?  What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest.  The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty.  Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance.  Along the way she asks:

Was Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop a communitarian, a Christ-like Christian, or conformity’s tyrannical enforcer?  Answer: Yes!

Was Rhode Island’s architect, Roger Williams, America’s founding freak or the father of the First Amendment?  Same difference.

What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet.

What was the Puritan’s pet name for the Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon.

Sarah Vowell’s special brand of armchair history makes the bazaar and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun.  She takes us from the modern-day reenactments of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from the old-timey Puritan poetry, where “righteousness” is rhymed with “wildness,” to a Mayflower-themed waterslide.  Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America’s most celebrated voices.  Thou shalt enjoy it.

My thoughts: One caution about the book — if you’re looking for a purely historical read, you won’t find it here. A short book, only 254 pages, it reads more like a dissertation rather than an in-depth historical look at the time period. Her topic is well focused and she doesn’t divert from what she has set out to research — the letters of the men inhabiting the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Don’t get me wrong, what she does fill the page with are wonderful and witty insights that will make you laugh about the sheer silliness of history.

She talks about the sometimes trifling events that made America what it is today and includes a few road trips to examine some things first hand.  While she doesn’t provide much in terms of the history of the very early Puritans, her work is focused on the words of the men (let’s be honest, it was all about the men at the time), one is left with an odd but very insightful interpretation of the types of people who were setting out to found a new land.

Vowell has a few other books out, one in particular called Assassination Vacation that I want to read.  She has a great sense of humor and can make a topic like the Puritans seems like a comedy.

Kraken: An Anatomy

/ justbookreading / 4 Comments

Kraken: An Anatomy

By China Mieville

Ballentine Books

eISBN: 978-0-345-52185-9

4 stars

Billy Harrow is boring and nothing much happens in his life.  He’s a curator at London’s Natural History museum and has an uncanny ability to make creatures look alive in formaldehyde.  Giving a tour one day to a small group of people, a normal occurrence that comes with the job, he finds the museum’s most famous exhibit, a giant squid, missing.  The cops are called, interviews granted, and no leads emerge.  Billy goes home and tells two friends about the missing squid, or squidnapping if you will, and his odd day.  What follows is a strange tale of squid worshippers, encounters with Londonmancers who predict the city’s future, magicians, gods, familiars, gunfarmers, chaos Nazis, and Star Trek fanatics.

I’m at a loss as to how to describe this book.  In genre terms, it’s fantasy.  It’s a caper of sorts, but it’s really not.  It’s a mystery, but it’s not exactly.  There’s so much going on in this book that I feel that if I talk only about one portion, then I wouldn’t be doing it justice.  On the other hand, if I don’t tell you about it all, then I won’t make it come alive.

My first experience with Mieville’s writing was The City & The City.  It’s a dark, detective, police procedural and even though it wasn’t my regular reading, I enjoyed it.  I thought this would be somewhat the same but it’s not at all.  It’s funny, witty, strange, downright weird, and chaotic in parts.  He takes you to the story’s abyss and pulls you back in.  (Oh, come on, I couldn’t resist.)  There’s a long list of characters that range from the most bland to the oddest of people and one who actually is what his name suggests — a tattoo.  He talks by moving around on a man’s back, slightly creepy but very effective.  There’s a god who flits back and forth into stone statues and the odd Star Trek figurine trying to help Billy track down the stolen squid and at the same time he’s also trying to put down a strike by familiars.  Then there are soothsayers who cut holes in the skin of the city (the asphalt serves as the city’s skin) to read its guts and predict the future.  There are otherworldly hit men and a police force that deals in the supernatural.

Here’s the hard part about this review — I enjoyed this book.  A lot.  Thanks to this book, there are many new words that I want to incorporate into my vocabulary — Google-fu, Krakenists (people who worship the Kraken god), and squipnapping to name three.  Although, admittedly, squidnapping is going to be much harder to slip in during normal conversation.  It amused me, made me think of paperback thriller books you can buy at the grocery store, and made me add Mieville to my list of must-read authors but the books itself is impossible for me describe.

What I can say is that Mieville is a master story-teller able to incorporate a wide range of pop culture along with numerous religious arguments you never really knew you’d find yourself thinking about while reading a book about a giant squid that has been kidnapped.

I spent several days ruminating over this review and I still don’t think I’ve provided anything useful.  It’s strange book but a good mix of everything.  It’s fantasy (the story takes place in an alternate London) but offers so much more.

Here’s what I will say to wrap this up and staunch the bit of a love fest I have going on — if you’re looking for something completely out of the ordinary, try this one.  It won’t disappoint, just make sure you go in with an open mind and a good bit of, “Oh, OK, that’s where we’re going with this.  Then lead on,” attitude.

Teaser Tuesdays

/ justbookreading / 6 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

Today I’ll be starting The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer so let’s all take a look at the first page shall we.

“To tell you the truth, I’d have noticed the guy even if Faye hadn’t pointed him out to me.  He was slicker than the usual Morningside Coffee crowd — off-white linen suit, black silk shirt buttoned to the throat, Jonathan Frazen-style designer glasses — but what made stop wiping table and look just a bit longer was the fact that he was reading a copy of Blade by Blade.” (3)

What are you teasing us with this week?