BTT: Children's books

Children's books (from Booking Through Thursday)

1. As an adult, do you own children’s books?
2. If you do, do you still read them even when there are no children around?
3. What were your favorites as a child? Now?

Yes, I may be an adult but I do own children's books.  I own some from when I was a kid and some I have bought as an adult.  I think the best children's book writers are the ones that can write books that appeal to all ages.

Since I am a child-free woman, I read all of my children's books without children around...unless I am at the library where there are children in the vicinity.

As a child, one of my favourite stories was "The Five Chinese Brothers" by Claire Hutchet Bishop from the 10-book Collier's Junior Classics set.  I also loved a lot of the Golden Books series and the Barbapapa series.

Now, as an adult, I like the Scaredy Squirrel series by Melanie Watt.  I love Oliver Jeffers (especially "The Heart and the Bottle"), Nick Bland and Nicholas Oldland.  I loved the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and enjoyed the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan.  And I've previously mentioned the Neil Flambé series by Kevin Sylvester.  I don't read a lot of children's books now unless the cover art or title strikes my fancy.  But working acquisitions and cataloguing in a public library means I have more exposure to them than some.

Read on,
Paula

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline

Synopsis:

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. 

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them. 

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. 

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. 

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. 

A world at stake. 

A quest for the ultimate prize. 

Are you ready?

My review:

I first heard about this book on The Readers podcast.  I listened to it again after having read the book and I firmly agree with all of the points Simon and Gav make.

Before I began reading the book, I was worried that I wouldn't get the pop culture references.  Although I belong to the demographic of children of the 80s, my family was poor and we lived in so small a town that it couldn't even be called a town.  I lived a rather sheltered and backwater childhood.  I think most of the references to 80s pop culture that I understand are mostly ones I know about from later in life.  Although we had a Commodore 64, that wasn't until the 90s.  I think our family and myself have been the opposite of early-adopters.  Even though we wanted those things when we were kids, we couldn't afford them and so I think we've just gotten used to having to wait until most of the hype has died down before we get it, if we do at all.  The time in one's life when most people tend to become gamers, I was too poor and never had the opportunity for that obsession to grow.  Although it is set in a gamer environment, it's not so over my head as to be inaccessible.  Most of the video game-related references were lost on me simply because I'm not a gamer.  And sadly, "Ghosts 'N Goblins" and "Frogger" were never mentioned.  So I just assumed that, aside from OASIS, all of the games, TV shows, and movies were real.  And, frankly, I just can't be bothered to actually check if that's true.  Whether they are or are not real is just irrelevant.  And aside from the video game-specific references, my fears about the book were allayed when I read the definitive reference to the movie "The Last Starfighter".

Getting sidetracked by rereading BBW romances for a few days, I feared that I would lose interest in "Ready Player One".  But luckily once I picked it up again, I was sucked back into it.

I was able to connect with Wade's character, mostly because of growing up poor, being good at school, and experiencing unrequited love.  And it was easy to root for him and keep reading just to see what would happen next.  There's a lot about the futuristic world and OASIS to be described but there is enough of the plot and character development interwoven with it that there's never too much of one aspect.  The quick pacing of the story was great even with the exposition.  The three main questions I had were "Will he or won't he win the contest?", "No matter who wins the contest, what will happen after?", and "Will Wade and Art3mis end up together or not?"  And I am happy with the way those questions were answered.

It was a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to anyone.  Because it is a quest novel, it is difficult for me to be interested in rereading it once I know how it ends.  I really liked the book a lot but I won't be keeping the copy that has been hovering on my bookshelves since I bought it.  But if you are a gamer and/or a geek, you should definitely add it to your own bookshelves.

Read on,

Paula

BTT: Come Again?

Come Again? (from Booking Through Thursday)

1. What author that you remember having read does the best character development?

2. What book/series do you think is that author's shining work with regards to character development?

3. What was (were) your favorite character(s) in that book or series?

4. Do you ever find yourself really liking a character in a book that you're certain you would never be friends with in real life?

5. Do you ever re-read a book to visit a character because you miss him/her?

I have a hard time answering question #1 without it intermingling with question #2.  To me, picking an author who does the best character development is based on the book or series in which their best character development appears.  So my answer to question #1 is Kerry Greenwood and question #2 is her Corinna Chapman series.  Each of the main characters in this series are vivid people and that is an aspect of the reason why I love the series.

My favourite characters in the series are Corinna Chapman, her lover Daniel Cohen, and her cats.  Yes, even her cats are characters.  Although I do not have any cats to compare (damn allergies), Kerry Greenwood is very good at capturing cat behaviour and attitude in her writing.

In this series, I like the character of Jason Wallace, Corinna's ex-junkie apprentice.  I'm not sure of his age but he comes across as a late-teens, early-twenties young man.  I find him fascinating.  And we would never be friends in real life because I would probably lose my patience with him.

My answer to question #5 is an absolute YES!  In fact, I am eagerly awaiting the next installment in the Corinna Chapman series (due out any day, if her website is anything to go by) and I will probably re-read the six books in the series before I get my copy of the newest one.  I have also re-read L.M. Montgomery's "The Blue Castle" and Markus Zusak's "I Am The Messenger" because I missed the characters.

Read on,
Paula

Reading revival

I'm not sure what stole most of my love of reading earlier this year...but thankfully it was only temporary.  I would like to thank the prettybooks website and the literary podcasts The Readers, Adventures With Words, and Book Riot for reviving my biblioholism.

I'm doing very poorly on my GoodReads challenge of reading 150 books.  It is November and I've only read 84 books so far.  Although I know I won't make it to my goal, I am okay with that.  Despite my book slump, I've still managed to read a fair number of books.  I currently have a few on the go at the same time.  And I am re-excited about a few I meant to read earlier in the year but didn't get around to.

My other goal for 2013 was to read more books from my own collection.  So far that goal has practically fizzled and died.  However, I finished Judging A Book By Its Lover by Lauren Leto earlier this month and it is from my collection.  So I plan to revive this goal.  I've decided that if I read more of my own collection and don't like the book, I will give it a new life by donating it somewhere and therefore making more room on my bookshelves for books I truly want to have there.  Although I love looking at pictures of large book collections and wish for my own collection to grow, I am aiming to have more of the ones I've read and loved and fewer of the ones from my TBR.  Since I started out 2013 with similarly lofty goals, we'll see how this goal works out.

Read on,
Paula