Category: Bookish Owl

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The Bookish Owl – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Time for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling!

I hope you’re enjoying the Monday – I’m mostly just running around, trying to prevent my patio furniture from flying away. There’s really no other sensible thing to do in this weather than to burrow underneath a blanket with a book and not come out unless absolutely necessary.

Obviously you all know this specific book – if you don’t, I can only assume you’ve been locked in a cupboard for the past twenty years.

If so, that’s okay. No judgment here.

It is of course the sequel to this one, which I only link to because it is by far my favorite owl photo.

It’s nice to revisit these books, but I had blissfully forgotten exactly how awful Gilderoy Lockhart is… I have a feeling I might turn homicidal once I get to Umbridge.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
by J. K. Rowling

The Dursleys were so mean that hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he’s packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike.

And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockheart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls’ bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley’s younger sister, Ginny.

But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone–or something–starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects…Harry Potter himself?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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The Bookish Owl – Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Books. books and more books, and this one is called Sourcery by Terry Pratchett.

This one is about the wizards of Unseen University gaining waaaay too much power and then just trying to blow each other up. There’s also a talking hat bossing people around.

‘I think therefore I am a hat.’

(That’s a direct quote – I’m not drunk.)

Oh, and my favorite character, the Luggage, is trying to find its way back to Rincewind.

‘The Luggage’s lid was set in an expression of grim determination. It didn’t want much out of the world, except for the total extinction of every other lifeform, but what it needed more than anything right now was its owner.’

The Rincewind stories might not be the greatest of the Discworld books, but I feel a deep connection with Luggage.

Sourcery
by Terry Pratchett

Rincewind, the legendarily inept wizard, has returned after falling off the edge of the world. And this time, he’s brought the Luggage. But that’s not all… Once upon a time, there was an eighth son of an eighth son who was, of course, a wizard. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, said wizard then had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son — a wizard squared (that’s all the math, really). Who of course, was a source of magic — a sourcerer.

Will the sourcerer lead the wizards to dominate all of Discworld? Or can Rincewind’s tiny band stave off the Apocalypse?

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett 

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The Bookish Owl – Baking Bad by Kim M. Watt

Baking Bad by Kim M. Watt

Next up: Baking Bad by Kim M. Watt.

Now, this is not the kind of book I normally read, but it’s written by my long-time Twitter friend – the lovely Kim – and it promised murder and dragons.

I don’t ask for much more in life.

As I have already finished it, I can tell you that this book reads like an episode of Midsomer Murders… and then suddenly the characters are talking about dragons like it’s completely normal. It’s delightfully weird.

My only complaint is that there’s so much talk of food and baked goods that each chapter leaves you starving. Each paperback should come with a box of scones…

Baking Bad
by Kim M. Watt

A tranquil village.

A poisoned cupcake.

A murdered vicar.

A simple case – or it should be. But all clues point to the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute, and Detective Inspector Adams is about to discover there’s much more to the W.I. than bake sales and jam making.

Alice Martin, RAF Wing Commander (Ret.), and current chair of the W.I., knows the ladies of the Women’s Institute are not guilty. But she has a bigger problem. Toot Hansell has a dragonish secret, and she needs to keep the police well away from it. And she’d really rather not be arrested for murder. Again.

Meanwhile, Beaufort Scales, High Lord of the Cloverly dragons and survivor of the days of knights and dragon hunts, knows even better than Alice that the modern dragon only survives as long as no one knows they exist. But he also knows friends don’t let friends face murder inquiries alone. Beaufort fully intends to Get Involved.

This investigation is about to take on dragonish proportions.

Best put the kettle on.

A funny cozy mystery (with dragons), for anyone that likes their mysteries British, gentle, and well-stocked with cake, tea, and friendship. And dragons, obviously.

Baking Bad by Kim M. Watt

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The Bookish Owl – The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchet

Here’s The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett.

I’m still playing catch-up with these posts. And honestly? I’m not doing well. I’m devouring books at a pace total unheard of for me, so every time I get around to doing a post, I will have read another two books.

This one was another reread. It’s not even purely about being unable to let go of Discworld anymore – I’m reading so much I have to reread some old books, otherwise I’ll run out of books. Imagine the horror!

‘The Light Fantastic’ is the continuation of The Colour of Magic, though it has only slightly more plot than the first book (which doesn’t say a lot), but it introduces Cohen the Barbarian and there’s nothing not to love about an eighty-seven year old barbarian hero with arthritis.

The Light Fantastic
by Terry Pratchett

It is known as the Discworld. It is a flat planet, supported on the backs of four elephants, who in turn stand on the back of the great turtle A’Tuin as it swims majestically through space. And it is quite possibly the funniest place in all of creation…

As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld has only one possible saviour. Unfortunately, this happens to be the singularly inept and cowardly wizard called Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchet

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The Bookish Owl – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Owl

Here’s the owl post you have all been waiting for: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling!

It’s really amazing that it has taken me this long to do one of these posts with a Harry Potter book. I mean, really? I have an owl and I take pictures of it next to fantasy books, but for more than a year I never once did it with the most owlish book ever?

Talk about missed opportunities.

But I finally did it and it turned out to be my all-time favorite owl photo… because Artemis is wearing the perfect “Are you kidding me?!”-expression and I find it hilarious.

It’s almost as good as the time a friend and I took him on an improvised Harry Potter cosplay photoshoot, and he tried to eat the letter we gave him.

Artemis does not care to be stereotyped.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Owl