The Book Search

I just finished reading a not very new book called "The Akhentaten Adventure" which is part of the Children of the Lamp series by P. J. Kerr.  I liked the story a lot, which is about twins, John and Phillipa who discover that they are genies, or djinn.  Djinn have a different kind of magical power (one that is depleting to their bodies, so they are instructed to use their powers carefully) and in this book, they spend a lot of time learning about their powers as well as the history of the djinn, both from a historical and a literature perspective.  It got me me thinking about magic as a genre of fiction and why it's so common. There have been a lot of books about magic in the last few years, most notably Harry Potter, but there have been others like Charlie Bone and Percy Jackson.  The overarching theme to me is most often good versus evil.  I mean it's really cool to be able to do magic and make things happen outside of the world of reality, but if there isn'...

So I've been on kind of kick lately, for no apparently reason, reading books set in England.  One of my friends recommended one of them to me saying it was kind of a pain to read because the author uses so many English slang words, "Why can't she just write in English?", which is pretty hilarious.  But if you want to feel like you're away, it is sort of like speaking another language and yet it isn't! The one I just finished is called "Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith.  Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling who is a bit more famous for another series she wrote, also set in England, called Harry Potter.  Cuckoo's Calling could not be further from Harry Potter but I really liked it.  The main character is a private detective named Cormoran Strike.  He is an Afghan war veteran and is currently breaking up with his long time girlfriend.  He comes from a complicated family (rock star dad, groupie mom, many assorted half brothers...

Oh boy, do I love historical fiction.  I seem to have picked up several this week and all of them about the 1960s.  I read Countdown by Deborah Wiles two years ago and absolutely loved it.  If you haven't read it, it's a chapter book about a girl who is living near a military base in 1961.  Her dad is a military commander and the level of tension because of the political situation is extremely high.  Add to that a crazy uncle (post traumatic stress syndrome, most likely) who is digging bomb shelters, a big sister who is trying to find her way, and boys... it's a complicated story.  What I really like about it is the pictures, and there are a lot of them.  The pictures use graphic images and words from that time period to help you really feel what's going on.  I loved it!  Well, Deborah Wiles has a new book out called "Revolution" and it's also about the 1960s but this one is about the Civil Rights movement and specifically about a community i...

Of course it is a cliche to talk about the power of love, but it's sort of surprising how it comes up as a unifying theme in literature. I read a couple of books this week that made me think about how powerful love is. The first one was called "Iron Hearted Violet" by Kelly Barnhill.  It's about a princess named Violet who is not at all beautiful.  The storyteller describes how in all the stories, the princess is ALWAYS beautiful.  Since Violet is not beautiful (but IS the only daughter of the king and the queen) she starts to question if she REALLY is a princess.  Exciting and bad things happen and Violet figures out who she really wants to be, all based on the power of love.. the love of her father and mother, the love of her people she serves, the love of her friends.  It's a really great story.   It has some interesting artwork... it's almost anime, which I found a bit distracting.  It didn't seem to match the story to me... the story is sort ...

I've been visiting my sister in France this week and we've been thinking a lot about food. Well, we think a lot about a food anyway because I married a chef. We both like to cook and eat A LOT. What you really notice here in France, is that people also like to cook and eat a lot but that they think about food differently than we do. My sister lives in a small town on the side of a mountain just above the city of Geneva. As you look out and admire the gorgeous view, what you immediately notice is the fields. Fields of wheat and corn, fields of sunflowers, and trees full of apricots and walnuts. You can't even drive to the grocery store without passing farms. So if you see food being produced as part of your daily routine, does it make you think differently about your food? Well, in the markets (the open air markets as well as the grocery stores), the food is labeled with its country and sometimes even it's region of origin. So we find that we can taste the ...