Emily's Musings

A few books

Here's the last few books I've managed to read or listen to. I got bogged down for quite a while in The World is Flat, which set me back a bit. Got some good quality reading time this evening though while giving platelets again, so I managed to finish off Magyk (and will now have to go on the waiting list for Flyte)

The World is Flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century by Thomas L. Friedman.
This was our June bookclub book and it was interesting, but not a light read. It seemed to say the same things over and over, but they were interesting things so I tried to stick with it. Only 2 of the 8 people who came to the bookclub meeting had actually finished in time (I wasn't one of them) "The New York Times columnist offers a concise history of globalization, discussing a wide range of topics, from the 9/11 attacks to the growth of the middle class in both China and India."

Thud! by Terry Pratchett, Performed by Stephen Briggs.
S had listened to this one and from the little I heard I knew I was going to have to too. It is wonderfully funny and engaging. I'm really going to have to read more Terry Pratchett books. "A seemingly routine day in the life of City Watch commander Sam Vimes is abruptly interrupted by an unsolved murder, an impending war, an unwanted new recruit, and a pesky government inspector. By the author of Going Postal. It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win. It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium. It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself. THUD! It's the most extraordinary, outrageous, provocative, insightful, and keenly cutting flight of fancy yet from Discworld's incomparable supreme creator, Terry Pratchett."

Rowing in Eden by Barbara Rogan, Read by Anna Fields.
Another one passed on from S. "The surface serenity of life in the village of Old Wickham is disturbed by Sam Pollak's killing of his wife, a spate of arson, and the arrival of Jane Goncalves and her three foster children." Not something I would have picked up on my own, but I didn't want to get out of the car once I was hooked on it.

Septimus Heap, Book One: Magyk by Angie Sage
Had to read this one after so many people had asked for it at the library and I definitely enjoyed it and look forward to the next book. "After learning that she is the Princess, Jenna is whisked from her home and carried toward safety by the Extraordinary Wizard, those she always believed were her father and brother, and a young guard known only as Boy 412--pursued by agents of those who killed her mother ten years earlier."

And sadly I think that's it. I've been reading bits of The May Queen : Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s (which I learned about on Jennifer Weiner's blog) but haven't finished it.