Tag: Books

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The Bookish Owl – Jingo by Terry Pratchett

Jingo Terry Pratchett

Here’s Jingo by Terry Pratchett.

Yep, I’m rereading all the Discworld City Watch books I haven’t already read in 2019. After that, I’ll probably move on to rereading the Witch books. And then probably the rest of the Death books…

Don’t ever think running out of books is going to stop me from reading Discworld.

Jingo introduces geopolitics to the Discworld. And obviously Ankh-Morpork is going to mess that up (that’s just what Ankh-Morpork does, okay?), and suddenly we have Vimes embracing his knighthood, Nobby in drag, and Lord Vetinari becoming a street performer.

Also, there’s a lot of talk of camels…

Jingo
by Terry Pratchett

Discworld goes to war!

Somewhere in the Circle Sea between Ankh-Morpork and Al-Khali, the Lost Kingdom of Leshp has emerged after hundreds of years beneath the waves. And so with no ships, no army and no money, Ankh-Morpork goes to war against the Klatchian army claiming the rock as their own.

Undaunted by the prospect of being tortured to death by vastly superior numbers of enemy troops, a small band of intrepid men and a very thick troll set out under the command of Sir Samuel Vimes of the City Watch.

If they can survive long enough, maybe they can arrest an entire army for breach of the peace…

Jingo Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and Bone Leigh Bardugo

In case you’re not sick and tired of these posts yet (this is the 40th!), here’s Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.

I committed hubris by only bringing a single book with me on my trip to Budapest last week. I always bring 3 or 4 for a five day trip where I’ll get little time to read, and I only ever get through half of one, so I figured I was safe.

I was not.

So obviously I had to scour the guidebook and find the address of an English bookstore in Budapest. The one I found had an excellent selection of Fantasy books. I know this, because I had already read half of said selection, and as such had a hard time picking out a new book. I ended up with this one, because the cover was pretty and it sounded moderately interesting.

As I’m behind on these posts, I can tell you that I already read it. It took me a day. I enjoyed it immensely (and hopefully not just because I was drugged up on painkillers after a chaotic trip through airport security with a sprained wrist) and I’m definitely getting the other books in the series the next time there’s a good sale.

Shadow and Bone
by Leigh Bardugo

Soldier. Summoner. Saint.

Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold―a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite―and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.

As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.

Welcome to Ravka . . . a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.

Shadow and Bone Leigh Bardugo

 

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New Covers – Angel’s Voice Series

Covers Michelle Louring

I’m thrilled to finally make this post!

As I mentioned I have been working on new revised editions of Resounding Echo, Silent Sound and Quiet Whisper prior to the release of Ghostly Scream. Those new editions will be released over the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out!

What about Ghostly Scream, you might ask? Well, come back here on Thursday where the release date (which is soon!) will be announced.

In the meantime, feast your eyes on these pretties and tell me what you think of the new look.

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The Bookish Owl – Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett

Feet of Clay Terry Pratchett

Here’s Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett.

I’m actually already done with this, because I started it just before going on a trip to Budapest, and as I had already dropped off Artemis at his new owl-sitters (who have now been cured of any desire to get an owl of their own), I did not actually have an owl available for a photo.

So while Artemis was busy traumatizing my friends’ cats, I was rereading another of my favorite Discworld books. I think this might be my second-favorite City Watch book. Not sure what I love most: Vimes setting traps for assassins for sport, Vetinari being absolutely delirious from arsenic poisoning, or Nobby being frantically convinced that his boss will cut his head off if he, Nobby, is made king (“Mr Vimes’d go spare!”).

Feet of Clay
by Terry Pratchett

For members of the City Watch, life consists of troubling times, linked together by periods of torpid inactivity. Now is one such troubling time. People are being murdered, but there’s no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene. Is there ever a circumstance in which you can blame the weapon not the murderer? Such philosophical questions are not the usual domain of the city’s police, but they’re going to have to start learning fast…

Feet of Clay Terry Pratchett

 

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The Bookish Owl – The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Ladies and gentlemen, I will now be reading The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman.

Let’s hope it’s not filled with invisible words.

This series was recommended to me on Twitter (see, Twitter is good for something) and the author is new to me… meaning I don’t really have anything to write for this post. It’s so much easier to come up with stuff when you have expectations.

So I’ll just give you a random owl fact:

Did you know that you can tell whether an owl is nocturnal or diurnal by the eyes? If they got those scary, totally black eyes, they’re nocturnal. If you can see a yellow iris, they’re diurnal. Meaning Artemis, the fellow featured on all my book photos, is diurnal.

However, no one’s told him that, so I still have to deal with night hooting.

The Invisible Library
by Genevieve Cogman

One thing any Librarian will tell you: the truth is much stranger than fiction…
 
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it’s already been stolen. 
 
London’s underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested—the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something—secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself.
 
Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself…

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman