Three children – Three books – One prophecy

The Emerald Atlas

In book one of the Books of Beginning we meet Kate, Michael and Emma who are thrown from one orphanage to the next. When they arrive in Cambridge Falls and meet Dr Pym they quickly realise that something strange has been happening. They find a mysterious green book that takes them on a wild and dangerous adventure through time. They face monsters, wizards, dwarves, the master and an over the top nasty countess, before returning to a new and improved present.

 Emerald Atlas is a thrilling tale with surprises on every page.

 The Fire Chronicle

In book two of the Books of Beginning Kate, Michael and Emma join with Dr Pym to search for the chronicle. Michael takes a dead man’s memories to learn the secrets of this deadly book, while Emma makes friends with a penguin called Derek and Kate gets attacked by Screechers. Along the way they learn that their parents are alive and are running from the dire magnas.

 I really could not put Fire Chronicle down. One more book to go – I hope it is just as good.

Book 2 finished on a cliff-hanger!! Where is book 3 Mr Stephens??

Ages 10 up

If you’re looking for some fun, light reading with a bit of bite, this is an immensely charming story of a family in crisis amidst the world of wealthy Seattle.

Bernadette is a once-brilliant architect whose mental state has been deteriorating ever since her career went awry 20 years ago. Her gifted daughter Bee is the centre of her world and only friend; while her software visionary husband has morphed into a boring “cyclist” stranger consumed by his work.   Constantly at odds with the stuck-up clique of mothers at her daughter’s school, a hilarious sequence of social disasters and the anxiety of an upcoming family trip to Antarctica send Bernadette over the edge and she goes missing, leaving a wake of chaos behind her. The story unfolds in a series of emails and letters sent between the various characters, compiled by Bee in an effort to track down her mother.

This Book is Full of Spiders (Seriously, Dude Don’t Touch it!) – The sequel to John Dies at the End (JDE), TBFS is bigger and better then it’s predecessor, being more accessible in writing without sacrificing the laugh-out-loud moments.  Set after the events of the first book, TBFS can be read without any prior knowledge of Wong’s wacky universe though a read through of the first book certainly helps ease the reader into the main characters predicament as (yet again) they almost destroy the world (this time with body controlling ‘spiders’).Unlike the first book, which was released online as chapters and, as result was in reality 3 Wong-flavoured adventures in one book rather than one continuous storyline seen in TBFS. Wong still uses the 3 book format to separate the story in which things go from bad, to worse, to as David would say ‘we’re f*@#ed!’. On a whole the story line is a lot more focused and well paced than the first book, which takes away a lot of those ‘what the hell?’ moments of hilarity in the original.

However, this coherence in Wong’s latest novel doesn’t detract too much from the overall humour and wackiness of this tale, with the internet’s favourite canine mascot (Molly) and its fair share of laugh out moments. The action moments are well paced and almost leap out of the page like it would if it was a graphic novel and, unlike JDEactually makes some well placed observations on Western society’s obsession with zombies, technology and mass hysteria.

This Book is Full of Spiders is a more evolved version of the internet’s favourite anti-hero’s with its new found maturity never detracting from what is without a doubt an hilarious and entertaining read.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is an awesome book! It is set long ago in England (1800s!) when it was overrun with wolves. Follow Bonnie, Sylvia and Simon as they try to stop their evil Governess Miss Slighcarp and her network of Criminals, Forgers and Snitches from stealing Bonnie’s Mum and Dadss beautiful house. But when Bonnie has some terrible news will she be able to push on?!! I love this amazing book because books set in history fascinate me. Mostly because of the language in them, they use different words to us. And some of the names are very different from the names we use these days. Overall the book is VERY well written by Joan Aiken.

 This is the BEST BOOK I have EVER READ!!! See ya later

The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments is an introductory book about critical thinking. Using quirky illustrations Almossawi demonstrates common errors in reasoning. Bad Arguments has proved popular with students but also with general readers, serving as a nice primer on logical fallacies.

From dysfunctional families, to foreign countries to taxidermied pygmies Sedaris’ 8^th collection of travel stories and anecdotes does not disappoint. For both fans and new readers alike, Sedaris’s usual wit and self-deprecating charm map his descent into middle age and shares more of his family’s secrets in tales both varied and hilarious. From his father’s obsession with colonoscopies to satirical essays on the average American republican everything in ‘Lets Explore…’ touches something in the reader’s own life, even if it is as ordinary as litter on the side of the road.Sedaris’ writing style is always fluid and all but jumps off the page with energy, with even side characters in his anecdotes filled to the brim with their own personal stories. There is little else this reviewer can write to convey the sense of joy and energy that is reading any of Sedaris’ works, only that readers of all ages, shapes and sizes will find something (or everything) to their liking in this collection.

We the Animals is a novella of real power. Short and muscular, it follows three brothers living in an impoverished, dysfunctional New York. Like an ugly rock that’s been polished up, Torres’ debut is both raw and compelling. I read it in one sitting, then picked it up the next night and read it again. One of the best reads this year (2013).

Much anticipated book for (motor)bike lovers from Die Gestalten Verlag, one of my favourite publishers. Big & glossy – 320 pages, full colour, hardcover.

In the motorcycle scene of 1960s Britain, it was frowned upon to drive a motorcycle as it was produced in a factory. Following in this historical tradition, The Ride focuses on those who are creating customized motorcycles that come as close to one’s own vision of how pure riding should be as possible. For example, the creative young people who are buying old, wrecked bikes on eBay, removing everything but the motor and frame, and then rebuilding them in ways that are as radical and subversively creative as they are knowledgeable and respectful of tradition.

The archetypes of the new motorcycles created in this way—classic board racers, bobbers, café racers, and choppers—may very well be 30-50 or even 80 years old, but what is made out of them is new, not retro. Decked out with state-of-the-art disk brakes, LED lights, gears, and drive components, these machines are more agile, faster, more radical, and therefore more fun than anything produced in the past.

The Ride features transformations such as a boring plastic motorcycle made in Japan in the 1990s turned into a slick café racer with an Italian feel, a soulless neo-baroque machine turned into an in-your-face scrambler, or an old find from grandpa’s barn turned into a absolutely comfort-free hardtail with the coolest of sounds.

The book also presents small, local custom motorcycle workshops from around the globe that have established themselves with sought-after products that inspire other builders worldwide. It features extensive profiles of pioneers including Walt Siegl, Wrenchmonkees, DP Customs, Deus, Shinya Kimura, and Uwe Ehinger and their very different ideas of how a motorcycle should be. The unique bikes created in their garages—sometimes made-to-order, sometimes in a limited series—are often technically superior, better thought-out, and simply more radical than those produced by larger manufacturers who need to appeal to a broader audience.

One of the most underrated books of the last couple of years, review by WA author, Annabel Smith.

Peter Docker’s The Waterboys is both a historical novel and a speculative fiction, an adventure story and a contemporary myth or ‘dreaming’. The relationship between indigenous Australians and white settlers is made so new in Docker’s telling that the shock and horror of it hits you as if you are learning it for the first time.

Set simultaneously in the future and in a reimagined past, the novel tells the story of a young whitefulla named Conway, who has taken on the ways of the blackfullas. In a not too distant future in which whites control the nation’s water through a military-style corporation, Conway and his spiritual brother Mularabone are part of a movement waging guerrilla warfare on the whites, stealing the water and returning it to Country, where it belongs.

At the same time, Conway’s ‘dreaming’ takes him back through history, a member of Captain Fremantle’s crew, sailing into the Swan River for the first time. In a deeply moving retelling, Conway’s dreaming of these events sees Captain Fremantle throwing off the mantle of Empire and embracing the way of life of the Nyoongar people who meet him off the boat.

In both content and scope the novel is thrilling. The action sequences are fast-paced and exciting and are beautifully balanced by the poetry of Docker’s descriptions of the way of life of the Countrymen, and their profound connection to the land. There is terrible brutality in the story but there is also much humour and tenderness, especially in the relationship between Conway and Mularabone. The complex ties of family and kinship are explored both through this relationship and through Conway’s relationship with his biological brother, and the gradual revelation of the brutality of their shared history.

Though The Waterboys grapples with immense concepts – time, destiny, human nature, Docker never loses control of the material. It is an important novel but also a deeply satisfying read.

see more of Annabel’s reviews at http://annabelsmith.tumblr.com/ , and keep an eye out for new book Monkey Seedue soon.

Boldly going…to their graves.

Set in the near future where space is the final forgotten frontier The Explorer is a suspenseful temporal thriller that keeps readers guessing until the end. Cormac Easton, a journalist attached to the first manned expedition into deep space, is seen by the crew as an appeasement to the media and private corporations who funded the expedition. Useless and without any other role except to record the ships and its crew’s progression in this monumental undertaking, he is suspect. However, things go from bad to worse on the journey, and the crew begin dying one by one, seemingly by accident, until Cormac is the only one remaining whilst the ship continues onwards.Jumping from the past to the present and back again Smythe weaves an intricate tale about what it means to explore the final frontier and Cormac’s journey from observer to wounded hero. The writing is clear and flows seamlessly between both time and space as the clues that lie in the ships peril are contained within the past and Cormac’s recollections. Cormac, as a character is well thought out and instantly relatable as someone who does not belong and his crew mates act as fully fleshed out counterparts to his narrative, each with their own history, hopes and eventual deaths. The Explorerleaves the reader feeling satisfied, yet hungry for answers to the bigger questions that are revealed at the book’s climax, and paves the way for the second book The Echo book two in the ‘Anomaly Quartet’. This is a must read for sci fi fans and lovers of psychological thriller!