Friday, December 23, 2011Miss Spooky MuffinNo comments
The blog is now nearly six months old (or is it more?) and after many book reviews and a first giveaway, it's time to start with some reading challenges! They are the firsts but probably won't be the lasts...
Let's start with a nice Steampunk Challenge that got my eye the minute I saw it, organized by the great Bookish Ardour. The challenge is running from the first to the last day of 2012, and the idea is just to read as many Steampunk books as you can! Since we're pretty new to this, I will start with the lowest level, Geared, with 5 books to read. I don't know yet which books it will be, but there will be some Scott Westerfeld there for sure!
And since Bookish Ardour is organizing so many great things, we're also going to let ourselves be tempted by the Off the shelf Challenge! I don't know about you, but we've got so many books bought in the previous years that we haven't read yet! So it's high time to roll a challenge and get through those forgotten jewels. We'll be Making A Dint with 30 books to start with (woah!), let's see how we can manage to get these off the shelves!
We also just joined Goodreads (high time, right?), so we'll probably join the Reading Group Challenge for 2012. Add us as a friend (Lily and Lyra) and let's review books together!
And don't forget to join the French Books Reading Challenge, of course!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011Miss Spooky MuffinNo comments
You like mystery? Magic? Westerns?
You're a Sanderson fan?
You're just curious to try it out?
The Alloy of Law, latest book by Brandon Sanderson, is up for...
An Audiobook Giveaway!
... That just ended!
Too late to join
Never heard about The Alloy of Law before? How come, we have published a review about it some time ago, where you can even listen to an extract of the audiobook. And we gave away one ebook version of it!
And the winner of the raffle is...
Because sometimes, only one chance is enough! Congrats Zach!
Title: Toby Alone (Tobie Lolness, book 1) Original title: La Vie suspendue (Tobie Lolness, tome 1) Author: Timothée de Fombelle Pub. year: 2007 Pages: 400 Editor: Walker
Summary: Toby Lolness is just one and a half millimetres tall, and he’s the most wanted person in his world, the great oak Tree. When Toby’s father makes a ground-breaking discovery, tapping into the very heart of the Tree’s energy, he also realises that exploiting it could do permanent damage to their world. Refusing to reveal the secret of his invention to an enraged community, the family is exiled. But one man is determined to get hold of the forbidden knowledge ... and his plan is to destroy the Tree. Now Toby's parents have been imprisoned and sentenced to death. Only Toby has managed to escape, but for how long?
Toby Lolness is a two-parts saga that takes very little time to read. I've read each of these books in a few days only, maybe less.
This first book introduces us Toby, a 13 years old boy, who lives in the Tree. But the Tree is vast and a lot of tiny people live inside. There's the Treetop, the Lower Branches; the wise and kind people, the evil destructive people who are destroying the tree; and Toby, running for his life, after his parents have been imprisoned. Toby, trying to guess who is on his side, who is trying to catch him, and how to survive alone in the Tree, with almost everybody looking for him from the top to the roots. Luckily, he is not exactly alone all the way and he is full of resources!
Toby Lolness is a story about family, ecology, friendship, love, death, acceptance and so much more. But don't make the mistake to think that it's only a children book, for you can appreciate it even as grown-up. It's not patronizing, as some might be. It's just a story of a young teenager forced to leave his home, going even as far as the Ground Beyond, trying to live his life and saving his family while staying optimistic and hopeful.
After reading this book, you'll probably want to read the sequel (Toby and the Secrets of the Tree), so maybe you should aquire the two in one go. Like I said, it's a really fast reading so you can easily read them one after the other.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011Miss Spooky Muffin2 comments
You like mystery? Magic? Westerns?
You're a Sanderson fan?
You're just curious to try it out?
The Alloy of Law, latest book by Brandon Sanderson, is up for...
An Audiobook Giveaway!
Come and join!
Never heard about The Alloy of Law before? No worry, we just published a review about it two days ago, where you can even listen to an extract of the audiobook.
And now, thanks to Macmillan Audio, here is a chance to win the full version (info about it here)! You could be listening to it over and over again, narrated by the charming voice of Michael Kramer... tempted? Then join this awesoome giveway!
How does it work?
- The giveaway is for US residents only.
- Follow the instructions in the box below: leave us a comment and tell us what you like about audiobooks - the rest is just extra chances!
- Anyone can join, even if you come to this blog for the first time.
Monday, December 05, 2011Miss Spooky MuffinNo comments
Title: The Alloy of Law Author: Brandon Sanderson Pub. year: 2011 Pages: 336 Editor: Tor Books
Summary: Three hundred years have passed since the events of the Mistborn trilogy and Scadrial has changed.
Electric lights now illuminate its streets, buildings soar into the skies, and the planet is a hive of commerce. Waxillium Ladrian has spent twenty years in the dangerous frontier wilderness known as the Roughs. When a family tragedy calls him back to Elendel, he imagines that he is leaving danger for the safety of urban civility.
Little does he know what grave dangers await him.....
Me, being a fury-fan of Sanderson's work, that's no news for you I think. So well, me jumping at this not-so-next-but-still book of the Mistborn series is no news either, right? Tor has published the first 6 chapters online this autumn and I was feverishly waiting for each new part to come up. I tell you, those chapters, that's a good third of the book, but read them anyway. They're worth it.
This new book is a bit leaving behind the usual Mistborn atmosphere to take a much more Western novel side. The hero, Wax, is an "old" sherif of the Rough coming to town to save his family heritage. He cannot resist the temptation to investigate a series of heavy robberies happening around the city, and helped by his faithful Wayne, will stick himself where he shouldn't have, obviously.
I loved finding here the usual humour Sanderson uses in his books, since on the magical side it was not as good as it was. Sure, allomancy is still here, it's even combined with feruchemy (don't try to remember the names of the combinations at the end, I got a headache from that), but somehow it's not really the point. Here, the story is really focused on the robberies, the mystery solving, etc. But the humour! It has a name, and it's Wayne: dear, awesome grumpy Wayne, obsessed with hats, always a stupid joke on the tip of his tongue, master of "exchanging" what he needs against what lays in his pockets. And man, the guy can make speed bubbles and fight like you've never seen it. How much better could this get?!
Alright, let's be fair, I maybe didn't enjoy this book as much as the others. Some characters lack a bit of deepness (I didn't even like Marasi, sorry), the story is pretty classical and very westernish, far from the mysterious intricate Fantasy Sanderson usually serves us. But for a pretty classical story, it was really good. And I'm telling you, passing on that, it's like passing on a cookie fresh from the oven, just because there's not as many nuts as in the previous one.
But there's plenty nuts in there, dirty fellows!
And for the first time ever, you can listen to an extract of the audiobook from Macmillan Audio.
Like it? Come back this week for a chance to win it!
"Aw, biscuits," Wayne said. "Did you have to hit him in the head?
That was my lucky hat he was wearin'."
