New challenges for 2012!

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!

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Audiobook giveaway ended!

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!

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Timothée de Fombelle - Toby Alone

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.

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The Alloy of Law - Audiobook giveaway!

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.






Good luck!

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