Tag: Terry Pratchett

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Top Ten Tuesday – Book Titles that Would Make Great Song Titles

Book Covers Fantasy

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday!

This week’s topic is Book Titles that Would Make Great Song Titles, so I raided my bookshelves for candidates. It was surprisingly easy this time, but I think it’s because I read so much fantasy, and fantasy books tend to have catchy titles.

If you’re unfamiliar with the whole Top Ten Tuesday thing, it’s a weekly book prompt hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and it’s a great way to find new book bloggers and just talk about books, books, and more books.

Now, let’s begin.

We Hunt the Flame Hafsah Faizal cover

We Hunt the Flame

by Hafsah Faizal

I feel like this would make a great goth metal song, maybe sung by Evanescence or Within Temptation.

This Savage Song V. E. Schwab Cover

This Savage Song

by V. E. Schwab

This would be punk rock, since it makes a very ‘meta’ song title.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter cover

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter

by Theodora Goss

This would most definitely be a song by Panic! at the Disco…

Kingdom of Copper S. A. Chakraborty

The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

This would make for a great rock song.

The Bear and the Nightingale cover

The Bear and the Nightingale

by Katherine Arden

It’s not quite ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’, but I still feel like this is a song I would hear at a Renaissance Fair.

Jade City Fonda Lee

Jade City

by Fonda Lee

Another one I feel would make a good rock song.

Making Money Terry Pratchett cover

Making Money

by Terry Pratchett

This might actually already be a song by some ego-tripping rapper…

Shadow and Bone Leigh Bardugo cover

Shadow and Bone

by Leigh Bardugo

I love this title, but I’m not quite sure of which music genre it would be. Some subgenre of metal, perhaps?

A Hat Full of Sky Terry Pratchett cover

A Hat Full of Sky

by Terry Pratchett

Time for some pop music, don’t you think? If Natasha Bedingfield were ever to make a sequel to ‘Pocket Full of Sunshine’, this would probably be the title.

Good Omens cover

Good Omens

by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I imagine this as a really upbeat pop song. Owl City should get on it.

There you have it: My contribution to the world of bookish music.

Any of you agree with my choices? Or maybe you think I have the genres all wrong?

Throw me a comment and let’s talk books!

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The Bookish Owl – Diggers by Terry Pratchett

Diggers by Terry Pratchett

We’re kicking the week off with Diggers by Terry Pratchett.

This was the second book in the Bromeliad Trilogy, and the follow-up to Truckers. This time the alien garden gnomes – the Nomes – steals an excavator to scare the shit out of the humans.

I still don’t know what to make of this series. And not just because I have always despised garden gnomes…

Diggers
by Terry Pratchett

‘And Grimma said, We have two choices.
We can run, or we hide.
And they said, Which shall we do?
She said, We shall Fight.’

A Bright New Dawn is just around the corner for thousands of tiny nomes when they move into the ruined buildings of an abandoned quarry. Or is it?

Soon strange things start to happen. Like the tops of puddles growing hard and cold, and the water coming down from the sky in frozen bits. Then humans appear and they really mess everything up. The quarry is to be re-opened, and the nomes must fight to defend their new home. But how long will they be able to keep the humans at bay – even with the help of the monster Jekub?

Diggers by Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Truckers by Terry Pratchett

Truckers by Terry Pratchett

Next up is Truckers by Terry Pratchett.

This is about garden gnomes from space trying to hijack a lorry.

No, really. That’s what the book’s about.

As much as I adore the late sir Terry Pratchett, I can’t help thinking that he sometimes smoked some questionable stuff while writing…

Truckers
by Terry Pratchett

Imagine that all around you, hidden from sight, there are thousands of tiny people.
They are four inches tall, brave, stubborn and resourceful.
They are the nomes.

The nomes in this story live under the floorboards of a large Department Store and have never been Outside. In fact, they don’t even believe in Outside. But new nomes arrive, from – where else? – and they bring with them terrifying news: the Store is closing down and Everything Must Go . . .

Truckers by Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

There’s no dodging Dodger by Terry Pratchett…

…nor my horrible word plays. You just have to smile and nod and pretend I’m the least bit clever.

All kidding aside, this book was surprisingly charming for a story that follows a poor guy who makes his living from finding treasure in a sewer and ends up saving a young woman from her abusers. Dodger, the main character, is a petty criminal, but there’s something so compassionate and almost innocent about him that makes you fall in love with him, even as he’s punching people and stealing the silverware.

The depiction of Charles Dickens in here, however, is kind of a dick. Even though he tries to help.

And Dodger going to get a haircut at Sweeney Todd’s barbershop was pretty unexpected…

Dodger
by Terry Pratchett

A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he’s…Dodger.

Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London’s sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He’s not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl–not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.

From Dodger’s encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.

Beloved and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy’s rise in a complex and fascinating world. 

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

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The Bookish Owl – Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett

Johnny and the Bomb Terry Pratchett

Happy Friday! Today’s post features Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett.

This was the very first Pratchett book I ever read. I think I was about 12 or 13 years old, and my English teacher got tired of trying to keep me entertained whenever I finished the books we were assigned in class while everyone else was still at chapter 4, so she went to the library and got the box with all the English books (I went to school in Denmark. The selection of English books were literally in a cardboard box), put it in front of me, and told me to go nuts.

I don’t know why it took me a decade to return to Pratchett, because I remember laughing out loud at this book back then. And I’ll tell you, I was a grumpy kid. Me laughing freaked the other kids right out.

And amazingly, I still loved it upon rereading it. It’s the third and last book in the Johnny Maxwell series, but it is by far the best one. I love crazy Mrs. Tachyon and her time-traveling shopping trolley, not to mention her insane cat Guilty.

Johnny and the Bomb
by Terry Pratchett

Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has never been more true than when he finds himself in his hometown on May 21, 1941, over forty years before his birth!

An accidental time traveler, Johnny knows his history. He knows England is at war, and he knows that on this day German bombs will fall on the town. It happened. It’s history. And as Johnny and his friends quickly discover, tampering with history can have unpredictable–and drastic–effects on the future.

But letting history take its course means letting people die. What if Johnny warns someone and changes history? What will happen to the future? If Johnny uses his knowledge to save innocent lives by being in the right place at the right time, is he doing the right thing?

Johnny and the Bomb Terry Pratchett