Blog Archives
Y is for… (#atozchallenge)
Y is for…
Young Adult Fiction
Since being a ‘young adult’ I have liked to read ‘young adult’ fiction, now as a slightly older but still very young at heart adult, that has not changed in the slightest. I do have varied taste but tend to enjoy the paranormal subgenre.
As I mentioned in my V is for…Vampire post I read L. J. Smith’s book The Secret Vampire and I have gone on to read all 9 of the Night World series. I have also read all of her The Vampire Diaries (not the TV spin offs yet) being part way through the final book Midnight at the moment. Also I have read, The Forbidden Game, The Secret Circle and Dark Visions (which I vaguely remembered the first part of so not sure if I read this from the library). All of those books are hidden in a second layer on the bookshelf along with Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series (that True Blood is based on). I’m actually guessing that those are adult rather than young adult but I’ve not started reading yet. I bought the first three of the Succubus series by Richelle Mead in a second hand bookstore the other week and again think these are meant to be adult. Richelle Mead has written a series called Vampire Academy which I believe is getting a spin off series shortly. I’m waiting to buy these because I’m undecided about whether or not to purchase hardcopy or on Kindle. The other books on the shelf are The Immortals series (Alyson Noel), The Morganville Vampires series (Rachel Caine) and The House of Night series (P.C and Kristen Cast – mother/daughter writing duo). Then Fallen (Lauren Kate -first of a series) and Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl – also part of a series).
At school I remember reading the Point Horror books (with titles like The Babysitter and The Lifeguard) and Sweet Valley High (a slightly different genre) and I’ve read TV spin off books of Buffy etc. After the film version I read I know what you did last summer (Lois Duncan). One of my other favourites is The Changeover by Margaret Mahy – I re-read this recently and still found it creepy.
Of course I’ve read His Dark Materials (Phillip Pullman), some of the Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer) and The Twilight series (Stephanie Meyer). If you haven’t checked out The Host (also by Meyer) – do, I’d love to see it made into a film – the female character in it is a much stronger lead than Bella.
I have to admit I get a bit lost as to what is considered young adult sometimes, for example where do The Princess Diaries (Meg Cabot) sit? Malory Towers (Enid Blyton – hate the new covers). Lemony Snicket?
And what about Harry Potter? (cue an opportunity for me to add another picture of the bag that my HP7 came in and that I forgot to add into my H post). A number of these series at least start as children’s books but in HP’s case especially they move into Young Adult territory as they grow more mature in theme.
Now as you may have noticed a lot of these books remain unread (need more hours in the day please). And I haven’t even mentioned the ones on my Kindle yet (The Mortal Instruments (Cassandra Clare), Firelight (Sophie Jordan), The Tor (Lisa Granville), Fall of Angels series (Keary Taylor), My Blood Approves and Trylle (Amanda Hocking– if you have not heard of her you are probably not a writer spending a lot of their time on Twitter).
All of these are still sat there or tucked up electronically waiting to be devoured. I keep putting off reading because I know I’ll want to stay up all night to read them in one sitting.
Now I blame my growing library on Twitter and one person above all others – Jesi Lea Ryan who writes the blog Diary of a Bibliophile. I enjoy her book reviews so much she makes me want to buy and read the books that second. If you are interested in YA please do check her out (I’ve also added some other YA links in my blogroll).
When I do finally get round to reading, now I have a Goodreads account, I plan to write reviews which I may post here too and that should pop up in the little Goodreads’ widget. As I read I’m going to have to make note of some quotes so that I have more than Harry Potter ones pop up – not that I really mind that.
When I was digging through my parents bookshelves looking for a book that I thought I remembered from my childhood I came across The Tovers (Elisabeth Beresford) – I remembered the cover immediately and can’t wait to re-read. I didn’t find the book I was after. If anyone can help (and apologies if I’ve already posted this but it is bugging me) – it was a children’s illustrated book about a party on some steps in a castle/tower where everyone got a ticket which told them how many steps they had to climb and when they got to their step there was a box with their food in it. Please someone know this book!
And Tabitha Suzuma says I should have my signed copies of her books early next week. Very excited about those.
I wonder if there are any of you thinking, you’re a 30 something year old woman who is seriously needing to start considering hair dye, grow up and read Tolstoy or something. You might have a point, and I do also read fiction outside of this genre and written for adult audiences, but this is the type of genre I want to write so as well as being very pleasurable this is research and therefore a legitimate occupation for me. Actually strikethat it’s legitimate whatever my reasons because it is meaningful to me. I can still see me as an 80 year old reading about vampires and witches and angels and fairies and love and human frailty and I’ll be enjoying it.
This is a plea to come back on Saturday for my final Z post in which I plan to run a little social experiment that will need as many of you commenting as possible. On the day do tell your friends and share the link using the handy share button at the bottom of each post. Thank You.
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H is for… (#atozchallenge)
H is for…
Harry Potter
Who guessed right yesterday? Hats and Hobnail boots indeed Mrs. Donald!
In this post there is one spoiler from Book 6/Film 6 and one from Book 7/Film 7.1 about deaths in the story, if you haven’t seen/read these and don’t want to know you may wish to look away. This post is also a bit random as I try to get across my unadulterated love of Harry Potter. Beware also lots of pics so this may take a while to load (sorry)but hey I’ll have got it all off my chest.
Here is my Goodreads review of the Harry Potter series (which I found with a pic of all the books in a luggage case).
Now sadly I don’t actually have this set but I do have plenty of Harry Potter related goodies so I’ll cope.
I love these books. I only actually got into them just as Book 4 came out. I remember phoning (yes, phoning) The Book People to order the Books 1-3 boxset I had seen in their magazine and the lady on the phone asked me if I wanted to order Book 4 too. I did. I have to say that it did take me a chapter or two to get into the first book (I’m sure I’d read somewhere else to persevere). Not that it was a struggle just that it didn’t immediately capture me, I guess not until the magic started. Once I was in I was hooked. J.K. Rowling has created a world so detailed that I now return to it time and time again. I can’t wait to read all the books and watch all of the films before the final film instalment is released 15th July 2011.
Books 5 and 6 I ordered the Bloomsbury editions from Amazon and got them on day of release (having to restrain myself from hugging the postman who seemed generally happy that everyone was happy to be receiving their post that morning, or afternoon).
For the last book I decided I couldn’t wait until the afternoon and that I wanted to queue outside my local Waterstones to buy the book at midnight. It really added to the atmosphere surrounding the last book and the close of the series, there were two girls who played the theme tune and people dressed up. I got the book home and by 1am I was reading it and I stayed up until I read it (no one was going to spoil it for me – just as I won’t give any spoilers here). I finished the book having cried a few times over at about 12.15. I then had the quickest shower ever because I had my sister’s friends wedding to attend (We’d bought her a copy of HP7 the night before as a wedding gift). I made it, swaying with tiredness, through the service but sadly had to give in on going to the evening do to get some sleep (sorry Stacey).
I have all the audiobooks too (love Stephen Fry) and The Tales of Beadle the Bard. I have the UK Children’s cover editions (which imho are the best). It really annoys me that they changed the title of the Philosopher’s Stone to the Sorcerer’s Stone.
I can’t pick a favourite and I deliberately haven’t done separate reviews as they all meld into one fantastic whole.
I would strongly recommend these, I will be reading to my children (when I have some).
OK now let the random Harry Potter crazy geeky fan ness begin.
Here are the pictures of the launch of book 7 at my local Waterstones (apologies for the quality).
I have been sorted into Gryffindor at least twice (once Realistically ;o))
On J.K Rowling’s website I took the WOMBATs Grades 2 and 3 and got Outstanding in both (I missed Grade 1)
I don’t normally collect stamps but I will when they are Harry Potter related.
I have ‘a few’ items from the Harry Potter Noble Collection. Rather than add photos you can link to the site and I’ll just tell you here. My first purchases were Harry and Hermione’s wands in their Ollivander’s cases and also the Lightning Bolt stands. I was thrilled to get the House Crest Keychain free with my order (and I use this for my keys). I also have The Marauder’s Map in its display case (on which I still haven’t found Dumbledore’s office – I would get hopelessly lost in Hogwarts unless I had this map), The Time Turner in its box, The Phoenix Pendant (I allowed myself this as BAOT my professional body also have the Phoenix rising from the flames in its logo) and the Gryffindor Sword Letter Opener (this has been used a fair bit too). The American Noble Collection is different and I do like Hermione’s necklace but I must stop.
My sister offered to buy me The Monster Book of Monsters secret book with strokeable spine but that’s a kid’s toy so I said no. Just been Googling to find a picture of this and there are some really tacky versions of this available, I can’t remember what this version looked like.
I have all of the DVDs so far including the special Death Eater mask one for Order of the Phoenix and the first part of the Deathly Hallows I believe is coming to my in the BluRay/DVD/Digital edition pack next week. I have a HP poster in my media library (posh word for where the books and DVDs live).
I own nearly all of the HP Wii Games and HP Year 1-4 Lego for the iPad. I haven’t played or finished them all yet.
I am itching to book tickets for 15th July but think it may be a tad early but the date is in my diary (I was so anxious to see one of them on its opening day that we ended up with front row seats and a headache – sadly that meant I had to see it again (I still have all my cinema tickets but then I keep those anyway)).
I actually *ahem* inspired J.K. Rowling’s SPEW with Trolls instead of House Elves and I cried more in Book 7 when Dobby died than I had when Dumbledore died at the end of Book 6. Although you can’t see me in the picture I am young and it was before HP came out. Look even his natty outfit looks like something Dobby would wear.
I have called my car Luna after Luna Lovegood. I only did this because I have no children ;o) and the car is silver so it makes sense.
One year my sister made me this birthday cake because she knew how much I love HP (I got an iPad slab of chocolate last year). Here I am blowing out the candles (ooo teacakes on the plate).
I am SO sad I made a video with sultan the cuddly toy I’ve had since I was one with me dooing the theme tune and then moving in on a Harry Figurine with patronus stag and then saying Expecto Patronum. It works in QuickTime but it won’t let me upload due to security hence the description. The HP figure was a very cool gift I was given (my Michelle I believe – hope I’ve remember that right). Since posting I have found out that it does load to Facebook so if you are a friend on facebook you can find it in my videos. Happy viewing.
I swear that when I woke up from my anaesthetic after having my head stitched together after a car accident that the nurse in the recovery room said I had a scar to rival Harry Potter’s.
I searched my computer for content on HP and found mazes, wallpapers, PP quizzes, printable books, screenshots of things I have seen or done online. Try as hard as I might I could not find the phone video of the girls playing the theme tune on launch night.
I loved the first film and felt the settings in it were perfect for the world. I looked like the characters in the boats when they saw Hogwarts. I hated the Prisoner of Azkaban when I first saw it (though not any more). This was because they changed the set so much it annoyed me and of course Richard Harris wasn’t playing Dumbledore anymore (he was perfect) and I’m afraid I’m not all that keen on Michael Gambon. After watching that film I have learnt to lighten up a bit and go with the changes they’ve made. (Side note: Robert Pattinson is much sexier as Cedric than as Edward in Twilight – Team Jacob). Some of the comedic moments with the students are good. The Burning of the Burrow and chase through the swamps in film 6 really peeved me off though (what was that!). I love the bit in Film 6 though when Harry takes the luck potion and when Professor Slughorn says ‘Harry’ he says ‘Sir’ (I’ve linked to the imdb quote but you have to see/hear it to get why I like it so much).
But as much as I do enjoy the films now I think that in a few years Harry Potter should be made into a TV series a little more faithful to the books and not cutting everything out – we need to see Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party in Chambers. If it’s a series it can be as long as it likes then.
I really really want my next holiday abroad to be to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Orlando Florida (and do the Disney thing again while I’m there). Who’s up for a trip?
So how much do you love Harry Potter?
kirstyes 