Bookish Thoughts

But first, some background.  Back in the summer of 2008, a spectacular show debuted on ABC Family.  That show was The Middleman  and if you haven't seen it, you should grab a copy of the DVD and start watching it ASAP. Middleman:  You know how in comic books there's all kinds of mad scientists and aliens and androids and monsters, and all of them either want to take over or destroy the world? Wendy : In comic books, sure Middleman:  Well it really does work like that In the first episode, The Middleman recruits Wendy Watson as his sidekick/middleman in training.  Together they fight evil, so you don't have to.  Wendy is a struggling artist who lives with fellow artist and best friend Lacy Thornfield.  They have a highly unreasonable loft apartment (which the show comments on regularly) and get into all sorts of art-related shenanigans together.  Their friend Noser lives in the hallway and knows more about music than you do. ...

Two books in one review?  What are these shenanigans?  But it didn't really make sense to separate these two books.  They are the first two books written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes and have a similar structure.  I also read them back to back and didn't want to do two reviews that would basically say the same thing. When I got my kindle for Christmas, the first thing I did was download every single Sherlock Holmes story from Gutenberg.org .  I started reading A Study in Scarlet almost immediately.  This picks up with Watson meeting Holmes, renting the rooms at 221 Baker Street with him, and helping him on a case for the first time.  Halfway through the book, they catch the criminal and the book completely switches perspective.  For the first half it's told in first person (Watson is the narrator) and takes place in London.  Then it switches to a third person description of the Mormons, led by Brigham Young, t...

The Last Continent is the 22nd of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.  There are currently 38 such novels, with a 39th coming this fall.  Terry Pratchett is planning to continue writing them for as long as he can, and I've heard rumors that his daughter his planning to take over after he dies. If you've never read a Discworld novel, I highly recommend you pick one up.  They are satires set in a fantasy world.  They make fun of everything from rock and roll music to Ancient Egypt, from Christmas to Shakespeare, from affirmative action to opera.  The Last Continent is mostly a satire of Australia (which takes the form of the last continent: XXXX, pronounced EcksEcksEcksEcks), but it also pokes fun at the creation aspect of being a god and the absurdity of rain (water's heavier than air; how does it get up in the sky?).  It even explains how the platypus happened. This is the sixth book in the Rincewind arc, and the Rincewind books tend to ...

How absurd was it that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people -girls, women- went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill Graceling (written by Kristin Cashore) is all about girl power.  Having it, embracing it, sharing it.  Wait, that's Buffy. Graceling is a young adult fantasy novel.  It's a coming of age story about Katsa. In Katsa's world, also known as the seven kingdoms, certain individuals are graced with extreme skills.  These skills might be cooking, sewing, or singing, or even mind reading.  Katsa herself is graced with killing.  She first killed a man when she was eight by shoving his nose into his brain when he attempted to grope her.  When the story starts she is eighteen and in the employ of her uncle, the king, who sends her out to enforce his tyrannical demands on the kingdom.  Although can't deny him, she has st...

House of Many Ways  is a children's book, written by Diana Wynne Jones.  The intended audience is nine year olds, not twenty-four year olds.  So why would I choose to read it?  Simple.  It's a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle . I first saw Howl's Moving Castle , directed by Hiayo Miyazaki, sometime during college.  It's my favorite of the movies that he has directed and I have seen (which includes Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro ).  Howl himself is insufferable and arrogant, but Sophie is awesome.  She's not one to sit around and mope. When she gets turned into a ninety year old woman, she ventures out to find a way to lift the curse.  She spends almost no time complaining about her lot in life and all her time actively trying do something about it. I recently found out that this story was not the mind-child of Hiyao Miyazaki, but of the Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones.  Not ...