The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Cross-Posted for Mainlining Christmas! Hercule Poirot's Christmas Agatha Christie, 1939 I find Agatha Christie to be an acquired taste that I've never quite acquired. I enjoy her work, usually, but it takes me a long time to get into each book. This was no exception. Once the story got going I quite liked it, but there were a lot of character introductions to get through first. Once the extended family was all together at the manor house, they got right down to the business of Christmas: acrimonious backstabbing, awkward flirting, and murder. Poirot is brought along to assist the local police when patriarch Simeon Lee is found dead in a locked room. He'd assembled his clan of children together for the holidays to emotionally torment them, then threatened to make a new will. So everyone has a motive, but only Poirot can peel through the misdirections and lies to figure out what happened. I especially enjoyed Poirot's amusement at the very British nature of t...

The Hobbit and LOTR Read-Along is hosted by Little Red Reviewer and Geeky Daddy Previous Posts: FOTR: Part One Part Two Part Three Bonus One: Photos of Books TT: Part One Part Two Part Three Bonus Two: TOYS! ROTK: Part One Part Two Welcome to Part Three of Return of the King! It's the end of the Read-Along! I'm sad to see it end, but it's just in time, as the holiday blog that I run with my husband is going to be taking up a lot of my blogging energy for the next month. Come visit us there: Mainlining Christmas! Due to time and what I actually have to say, I might skip some of the prompts this week, because mostly I want to talk about the fact that we finally got to my favorite chapter. Yay! What did you think of the two weddings? Do you think Eowyn will eventually find happiness with Faramir? I talked about this a bit last week: I think Eowyn and Faramir are well matched in background and temperament and will balance each other nicely. Holy Cow I was not expecting t...

Favorite Book This Week: Princeless #1 All books were new in stores 11/23/11 Princeless #1 Story: Jeremy Whitley, Art by M. Goodwin and D.E. Belton, Colors by M. Goodwin and Jung-Ha Kim I had heard a review of this book on the 3 chicks podcast a few weeks back, so I thought I knew what to expect: a humourous flipped fairy-tale. I got so much more than that. I got characters with heart and warmth, a world with fascinating corners we've barely glimpsed, and an utterly charming story about a princess off to save the day. The art is adorable and effective, the writing mostly very snappy. It's super small press, so you might have trouble tracking it down (I snagged the last copy at my comic shop) but whether you have a young comic lover (or young fantasy lover, especially female) in your life or you're just sweet on awesome All Ages books like I am, this is highly recommended. Wolverine and the X-Men #2 Writer: Jason Aaron, Pencils and Colors: Christ Bachalo, Inke...

Snuff Terry Pratchett, 2011 Premise: Commander Sam Vimes is taking a vacation to his wife's estate in the country. But just because you drag the copper out of the city doesn't mean he won't drag his sense of justice with him, and when mysterious and nefarious things are being done to the local goblins, Sam decides maybe the country isn't so boring after all. Another reviewer put it well when she said that it's a Monsters Are People Too plot , this time around focusing on goblins. Pratchett himself basically lays out the main theme on page 93: The City Watch appeared to contain at least one member of every known bipedal sapient species plus one Nobby Nobbs. It had become a tradition: if you could make it as a copper, you could make it as a species. But nobody had ever once suggested that Vimes should employ a goblin, the simple reason being that they were universally known to be stinking, cannabalistic, vicious untrustworthy bastards. Of course,  everybo...

Thud! Terry Pratchett, 2005 Premise: It's Koom Valley Day, or soon will be, and the city is restless. The anniversary of a much-argued historic battle between Trolls and Dwarves, firebrands are using it to stoke racial tensions until Ankh-Morpork's melting pot is threatening to crack. As usual, The City Watch is on the front lines. On this re-read, I didn't like this book quite as much as I remembered, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to like. Much of the immediate plot hinges on solving the murder of a dwarven leader, and Vimes and the usual crew spend a lot of the book scattered over the city, picking up pieces of the puzzle. I love the subplot about Vimes reading to his son, and Angua dealing with her own racial issues in adapting to a vampire in the watch. Mr. Shine is a worthy addition to the background cast of characters, and there's both humor and poignancy in how Vimes deals with a paper-pushing investigator sent by Vetinari. My on...

Night Watch Terry Pratchett, 2002 This was a re-read for me of one of my favorite Discworld books. Some spoilers in the premise for earlier books, and a few light spoilers in the review, because otherwise I couldn't talk about my favorite parts. Premise: Samuel Vimes has come a long way from a kid who joined the Watch. Under his leadership, the City Watch actually became a force for law and order. He eventually married and is now expecting the birth of their first child. This is all suddenly torn away when Vimes is thrown through a rip in time into his own past, along with the murderous psychopath he was chasing. I sometimes wonder if you could construct an interesting personality test from the Discworld series, based on which characters and which plotlines you most enjoy. For example, I know plenty of people like the Witches of Lancre books best, but they might be my least favorite. I really enjoy the books about Death, but my very favorites, the ones I go back and r...

The Hobbit and LOTR Read-Along is hosted by  Little Red Reviewer  and  Geeky Daddy Previous Posts: FOTR: Part One Part Two Part Three Bonus One: Photos of Books TT: Part One Part Two Part Three Bonus Two: TOYS! ROTK: Part One (PS: For more fantasy, come back this Mon-Wed for a short string of Discworld reviews, culminating in a review of  Snuff , the newest one, on Wednesday. But back to Tolkein for now...) Welcome to Part Two of Return of the King! This section took us through the main plot climax, and into the actual returning of said king. I love the whole sequence on Mount Doom, always have, although I'm still looking forward to the rest of the book! 1. After witnessing the events of Denethor's demise, what are your thoughts on him as a father and as a ruler, especially when compared to what happened with Boromir and the Ring. Denethor is a pretty sad character. I mean, he's arrogant and foolish, but as the leader of a city under siege (and I don't ...